


A Drum Sounds

by omphalos, Wolfling



Series: Inquisitor Hawke [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Comics), Dragon Age (Novels), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alternate Canon, Bad Latin Masquerading as Tevine, Canon-Typical Violence, Epic, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, What-If, cast of thousands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 115,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphalos/pseuds/omphalos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfling/pseuds/Wolfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>For a moment Hawke was completely still; then his shoulders slumped, his entire body bowing as if under immense weight. Later on, Varric thought, he would look back and remember this as the moment that Hawke took on the responsibility of saving the entire world, and how in those first few seconds, he couldn't hide the cost to himself.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Hawke in flight...

The screaming hadn't stopped.

Hawke stepped up from the lyrium smugglers' passageway with a footfall somehow weighted by those screams. Well, them, his multiple ill-healed wounds, and his barely conscious lover who was currently hanging from Hawke's arm and shoulder like a sack of particularly bloody potatoes.

It was only the quiet and sometimes not so quiet groans coming from said sack of potatoes that reassured Hawke that the dead weight wasn't just, well, dead. And Maker, he was treasuring those groans, every single pain-wracked one of them. Anders probably deserved a little pain anyway... or no, Justice did, but of course, Justice probably wasn't feeling it, Maker damn him.

Gwydion whined from where he loped at Hawke's Anders-free side. The poor hound was going to be criss-crossed with scars once this was done. Hawke couldn't even find the energy for a 'good boy', but brief eye contact seemed to content the dog for now.

"How are there any mages left to do all this screaming?" Fenris muttered, almost to himself. "Or templars. Their leaders are both dead, and we've already killed or seen killed more than I thought the Gallows could easily hold."

"If they're dead, somehow I don't think they've got the message," Varric replied darkly. He was the rearguard to Fenris' vanguard. "Anyway, every lousy gang of thugs from Kirkwall's shadows will be out making the most of this chaos. The screamers? Probably not mage or templar."

So the killing still continued. The old stone walls refused to absorb the sound, echoing it back out. Sensible things, walls. It was a dubious miracle that Hawke himself could still hear the raging battles. His ears had heard so much today that surely they should be deaf to it all by now, especially down here in Darktown where the walls were just mud held back by rotting timber.

Certainly his nose had long since ceased to smell the stink of blood, so much of it was soaked into their garments, into their skin and hair. Even Darktown seemed odourless today, and now, _that_ was a miracle.

Cullen might have let them leave, but the five of them had been forced to use the sewer way underneath the Gallows to make their escape. What boats there were that weren't burning were manned with angry templars, and Hawke didn't want to challenge the unexpected and no doubt fragile truce with their Knight-Captain.

They'd left the others back at the Gallows. Aveline and Donnic had stayed with Cullen, hoping to help restore order eventually to the city, and if anyone could do that, it was Aveline. Carver had gone to rejoin his Grey Warden brothers, although not before rolling his eyes at Hawke's vow to haunt him mercilessly in the afterlife if he let anything kill him before his time. Carver had assured Hawke he'd make a point of living at least a day longer than Hawke himself did. It was a point of honour apparently. Typical... yet strangely reassuring.

Isabela and Merrill, the least battered out of them all, had run on ahead to ready the captain's new ship, so that left Anders, Varric, Fenris and himself to make their way together. Gwydion too, of course. His mabari had been through everything with him; Hawke wasn't about to leave him behind now.

Suddenly, Hawke became aware he hadn't heard one of those reassuring groans for... how long? He didn't know; he hadn't been paying attention, damn him. He stopped abruptly, letting Anders sag onto a nearby crate. Anders tried to keep on sagging, toppling towards the filthy ground, and something already wound impossibly tight inside Hawke managed to tighten even further.

"Sit up, you stupid bastard," Hawke muttered, catching him and propping him up again. Anders' head lolled. He was still breathing, that was… something at least.

Closing his eyes, Hawke squeezed magic reservoirs long since squeezed dry. This was why apparently sane people turn to blood magic, wasn't it? He'd seen it again and again today, when the poor bastards had nothing left inside them apart from their own blood to fuel the magic they needed to survive the next templar's blade... Maker's balls, Hawke wouldn't even need to cut himself – there was plenty of the stuff all over them. More than enough to heal Anders...

No.

Sighing heavily, he tensed up his whole being, managing, just, to eke out the smallest of healing surges. It flickered across Anders' skin and then was gone, having achieved nothing. He dropped to his knees, too exhausted even to speak, letting Anders slump against him. Well, they slumped against each other, really. They were at one accord about the need for slumping, at least.

Maker, he was tired. He felt his dog press into his side, lending support.

"Hawke!" Fenris' tone was sharp. "There isn't time for this. Wounds can be tended once we're on board Isabela's ship."

Hawke didn't reply, didn't acknowledge the words at all, just lifted his hands back to Anders to try again.

"Hawke!" A wet mabari tongue licked his cheek, and someone, Fenris presumably, gripped Hawke's shoulder and shook him. "Now. Before Cullen has a chance to regret letting us go. Varric, tell him."

But it wasn't Varric who replied. Instead, Anders lifted his head and stared at Hawke with bleary eyes. "Love, enough." He pushed Hawke's hands away and attempted to stand. "I can make it to the docks." He mumbled something else too, but Hawke didn't catch it as Anders wobbled and collapsed back to the crate.

Hawke pushed himself upright, finding an unexpected helping hand under each arm – one elven, one dwarven. He nodded thanks and tried to do the same for Anders. Between the four of them, they somehow all ended up standing.

Hawke spared a glance around them as they started moving again in a stumbling shambles towards the docks. Together they had been through a lot, but Hawke had never seen them so defeated. His silence seemed to have infected them all. Even Varric was grim and clenched, Bianca held up ready to fire the moment anyone made a move towards them. It wasn't right.

Hawke knew he should say something, make a joke, a sarcastic declaration... the weight of his mass-murdering, spirit-possessed, three-quarters dead love was just too great. He couldn't find the breath.

With a quiet sigh, Fenris transferred his blade to his off-hand and moved in to wrap Anders' free arm around his shoulders, sharing the weight with Hawke. Maker bless the elf. For all his bile and brood, when push came to shove, as it always bloody seemed to do in Kirkwall, Fenris did what was needed, even if it was helping Anders.

Varric cleared his throat as they trudged into Lowtown. "If you want anything from your estate, Hawke, now would be the time to speak up."

It took a moment for Varric's words to penetrate, and even then Hawke was slow to answer, his thoughts like pouring treacle. "In the wardrobe. In my room. Left hand side. There's a pack. Two packs. One for me and one for..." he trailed off, tightening his grip on Anders. "Just in case. Never know when you're going to have to run for your lives, right?"

"Just can't predict when chantries are going to explode these days, can you?" Varric said, and Hawke winced. That was a subject that could wait, that had to wait, until they were far out to sea.

"And potions, every single one you can get from Sandal's store," was all he replied.

Varric nodded, saying only, "Meet you at the Rivaini Queen," aloud, but conveying a whole lot more with a glance towards Fenris before turning and trotting towards the basement entrance to Hawke's estate. Even as exhausted and in shock as he was, Hawke understood what that glance was saying. Varric was expecting Fenris to keep Hawke alive.

With a quick command, Hawke sent Giddy after Varric to keep him safe – safer, anyway – and then got them moving again, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other. Dragging Anders did feel a little easier now that Fenris was taking some of the weight.

"Thank you," Hawke said in what sounded a very hoarse voice, glancing over to meet Fenris' eyes for the first time since they'd left the Gallows.

"For what?" Fenris cast him a frown.

"For staying. I know that what happened–" he trailed off, swallowed, then continued "–was your worst nightmare. Mages rising up and _turning_... Yet you fought to protect them. Us. Thank you."

Fenris snorted as if Hawke was being a fool, hefting Anders up further. "He needs... fixing," he said in a tone that almost sounded sympathetic.

Hawke let out a harsh barking sound that would have been a laugh if not so drowned in pain, fatigue and loss. "No one can argue with that."

Anders himself made a noise that could have been a laugh, or maybe he was just coughing up blood again. Fenris sighed heavily. "He'll be number one on the Chantry's most wanted list, the rest of us a close second. I hope Isabela's hold is packed ready for a long voyage."

"We'll manage." And there, was that just a hint of Hawke's usual unflagging determination? Could he really recover even from this? Back in Lothering, Bethany had often said he was like one of those toys with the heavy rounded bases. You knock them over, and they come straight back up again. If she could only see him now... "We always do manage, you know us," he added more firmly.

They grew silent again during the effort of getting Anders to the bottom of the long stairs without any of them falling. After that, they could hear the sea ahead of them and then see it. Anders seemed to be taking more of his weight now that their destination was close, but when Hawke glanced at him, he saw Anders' eyes closed, his lips muttering.

Fenris tutted, and Hawke looked around to see the elf staring back at the plume of evil-coloured smoke that was still rising above Hightown. "What did you use, mage?" he asked harshly. "What kind of fell magic was that?"

Anders coughed and then laughed raggedly. "No magic. Well, the lyrium trigger..." he managed before the coughing started again. "Blackpowder. Stole... stole the recipe... from the compound af... after Hawke defeated... "

"You were planning this even back then?" Hawke asked, appalled that he still had the emotional energy left to somehow care, to somehow hurt over what seemed like another betrayal.

"No! Love, no." He felt Anders tense shakily beside him. "At least... _I_ wasn't. I don't know about..." Anders trailed off. "I just thought we... we might have need of it. One day..."

"I can't–" Hawke said, but then shook his head – another horrible thing to talk about later in the horrible conversation to end all horrible conversations. "Let's just get to Isabela's ship. Don't want her to decide to leave without us."

"Hawke." Anders seemed to pull back against them as if trying to stop them in their tracks. "Hawke, I had to. No one would listen. I–"

"Not now, mage," Fenris growled, almost below his breath. Whether Anders heard or not, he didn't say anything more.

The rest of the trudge to Isabela's jetty was spent in silence. Hawke broke it with a relieved sigh when the ship came into view.

"We made it," Fenris said with a grunt.

"Did you doubt us?" Hawke raised a challenging eyebrow, but Fenris was staring across the water towards the Gallows. Hawke could see figures, templars probably, moving around by the moorings there. "Ah. I hope she's ready to haul anchor."

They dragged Anders up the gangplank and onto the main deck of the ship. Isabela's men seemed busy at work, but one of them took a look at the three of them and whistled loudly. It was clearly a signal. Isabela almost immediately appeared on deck and strode towards them.

"There you are," she said, coming closer to lend a hand with Anders on Hawke's side. "Come on, let's get you below decks and into your cabin so the crew will stop gawking and get back to work."

"We should leave as soon as Varric arrives," Hawke told her.

"Already here," said a familiar if rather breathless voice behind him. "All the fetching and carrying is done, so I guess I'll take my leave of you all."

As Gwydion trotted up to sniff at Hawke's boots, Fenris craned his head around at Varric. "You're not coming?"

Varric shrugged after passing the packs he carried to Hawke. "What can I say? Dwarves aren't meant to leave solid land. I'll keep my eye on your place, Hawke. Stop any would-be looters and make sure Orana's okay."

Hawke let Fenris and Isabela take Anders' weight before moving towards Varric. "Are you sure? You're going to be a target."

"Oh, you know me, Hawke," Varric said with a smile. "No trouble so deep I can't talk myself out of it. Keep in touch and keep Blondie away from high explosives." With a wink, the dwarf turned and headed back down the gangplank. He never had liked long goodbyes.

"Stay safe," Hawke muttered, watching him go. Kirkwall was Varric's home far more than it had ever been Hawke's, but nine years of adventures and misfortunes shared were suddenly over it seemed, and that... hurt.

It was far from the only thing that hurt, but of all his battle wounds and bruises, for some reason it was his left hand that was suddenly hurting the worst, burning like it was acid-soaked. As soon as Anders' condition was stable, he'd take a look at it. Maybe it had caught a touch of poison from someone's knife.

After taking the weight of his main patient back, he said, "Get us out of here, Bela."

"Already gone," she replied, moving away to start shouting orders.

And that was when his hand exploded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke's attempt at disguise and subterfuge goes terribly wrong...

Not knowing where he was upon waking was, unfortunately, a familiar situation for Hawke. As was feeling like he'd just gone ten rounds with a high dragon. The fact that he'd actually had such an experience to use as a comparison summed up exactly the kind of shitstorm his life generally was.

The pain in his left hand from the dream he'd been having seemed to be continuing. Ah, the heavy shackles around his wrists were new and disturbing, as were the the large gaps in his memory. He'd been undercover; he remembered that much.

He'd been at a conclave, _the_ Conclave, a gathering of mages and templars under the auspices of the Divine herself, who was trying to engineer some kind of accord to end the war between them, a war that Hawke himself had been partly responsible for starting. Showing up as himself in the middle of it would have been ill-advised at best, suicidal at worst. If he'd had an ounce of self-preservation, he wouldn't have been within a hundred leagues of the place, but...

They had Varric. Hawke had received word that his friend had been detained by the Right Hand of the Divine herself, Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast. She wanted Varric for _questioning;_ Hawke could only pray that hadn't been the euphemism for torture it usually was. Either way, Hawke wasn't about to let them keep Varric prisoner, and so he'd headed to the Conclave where, the same rumours said, Varric had been taken.

Hawke had managed to slip in unnoticed, just another apostate among many, and had been wandering the halls looking for where they might be keeping his friend when... nothing. A big blank spot where a memory should be.

A surge of _something_ shot through him, however, interrupting his thoughts. He could only define it by what it wasn't – pain, but not; electricity, but not, all centred in his left hand. He looked down and saw... His palm was glowing with a strange green energy as if he'd been branded with it. He could _feel_ it pulsing, like magic, but it wasn't his magic, far from it.

Sweet Maker, what was that?

A loud noise dragged his attention back up. Two armoured women, one of them hooded, were coming through a doorway that had slammed open in front of him. Another noise, of metal on metal, prompted him to look around for the first time, revealing he was surrounded by men who, until this second, had had their swords out, pointed right at him.

What in the Maker's name was going on?

"Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now," one of the women said right into his ear.

He turned his head to look at the speaker. She was wearing the armour of a Seeker, he noted. Was this the Right Hand that had captured Varric? Even as off balance as he currently was, Hawke was too good at hiding how out of his depth he felt. Sometimes it seemed as if that was all he did. So he raised an eyebrow and spoke in as confident a tone as he could manage.

"If you were going to, you would've already. That you haven't, means you want something."

She began to pace around him. "The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you. You tell _me_ what we could possibly want from you!"

"What?" Of all the things that could have happened during that blank spot in his memory... "Everyone?" An older memory, one he often wished he could forget, pushed to the fore of his mind – the Chantry explosion, the thing that had started all of this. _Not again_.

"What did you _do_?" she demanded, her unfamiliar accent somehow adding to her barely controlled ferocity.

"Nothing!" Hawke insisted. Then more honestly than might be wise, he added, "I– I don't remember."

"You're lying!" The woman slammed her fists into Hawke's robes and gripped the cloth, half-lifting him. Hawke didn't have the chance to decide whether or not to defend himself before a gauntleted hand was thrust between them.

"We need him, Cassandra," said the hooded woman.

Hawke was almost certain he knew that voice. _Nightingale_ , he thought, remembering a clandestine meeting and threats of an exalted march. He turned his head, trying to get a better look at her to either confirm or deny, but she seemed adept at keeping to the shadows.

Whether or not it was her, she had at least confirmed that the other woman _was_ the Right Hand, and therefore an acceptable outlet for all the anger that Hawke was desperately holding onto rather than the fear, pain and confusion in which he would otherwise be mired.

"Like you needed Varric?" he all but growled. "Tell me, is this the same _hospitality_ you showed him?"

Cassandra frowned, moving back a little. "Varric Tethras? What does he have to do–"

"Varric is well, Champion," the hooded woman interrupted. "Is he why you're here?"

The words sent relief through Hawke so strong it was almost a blow. Not dead then. Whatever tragedy had happened, it hadn't managed to steal one of the few people that he had left. Ignoring the Nightingale's question – he was certain it was her now – he asked instead, "Where is he?"

"You are not the one asking questions." Cassandra, of course. He was already getting a feel for how she worked. She lunged forward again and this time grabbed one of his shackled wrists, lifting his left hand. "Explain this!"

He had almost managed to forget about the strange green energy that now marked him until it was so forcefully brought back to his attention. He stared at it, his stomach once again turning over in dread. "I... can't," he admitted.

"You can and you will. Is this how you did it?" Cassandra shook his wrist, making the shackles jangle. "How you destroyed the Conclave, how you killed–"

"Do you remember what happened at all?" Nightingale again, playing good guard to Cassandra's bad. "How this began?"

Hawke pushed at that blank spot, needing to get to what had happened, if only to defend himself. The most he got were flashes: pulse bounding, fear choking, panting for breath. _Don't look back, don't look back._

"I remember... running." A hand reaching out for his, a soft feminine voice, unfamiliar, but somehow reminding him of his mother. "And a woman."

"A woman?" Nightingale echoed. Cassandra said nothing, but dropped Hawke's arm and stepped back, frowning.

He tried to focus harder, but there was nothing. "There's nothing else," he said, frustration colouring the words. As much as they wanted answers, Hawke wanted them even more. He glanced between the two women. "What _did_ happen?" he demanded.

Cassandra sighed, apparently accepting his memory loss for now. "It'll be easier if I show you." She turned to her companion. "Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I'll take him to the rift."

As Nightingale – Leliana? – left, Cassandra bent again to lift Hawke's shackles. Hawke was expecting to be dragged up by them, but unexpectedly, the Seeker unlocked them, binding his wrists instead with a length of rope.

"Come on," she instructed with a nod, stepping back and waiting for him.

Hawke climbed to his feet as gracefully as he could manage. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"If you did, I'd have reason to doubt your sanity."

She led him from the small jail area and up into a larger hall that felt decidedly chantry-like. The air was more chill up here, and so he wasn't surprised when a guard opened large wooden doors ahead of them to reveal a snowy exterior. Was this... Haven?

"We call it the Breach," Cassandra said as she strode out through the door, obviously expecting him to follow.

The first thing he noticed as he stepped outside was how strange the daylight looked. Sickly, with a cast that reminded Hawke of the glowing colour on his hand. Then came a large crackle above them, and he turned his gaze upwards... to see that the heavens were ripped asunder.

There was a hole in the sky; that was the only way to describe it. A furious churning maelstrom of a thing, glowing with that same sickly green energy – Fade energy, Hawke was now realising – out of which was falling Maker knew what. Hawke didn't want to know, but he was fairly certain he was going to find out regardless.

"It's a massive rift to the Fade that's growing larger with each passing hour," Cassandra said, walking back towards him. "And it's spawning smaller ones in ever greater numbers. It was caused by the explosion at the Conclave. Unless we act it may grow until it swallows the world."

And, of course, it was even worse than he'd thought. This made the Chantry explosion, and all the other horrors in Kirkwall, look like nothing more serious than a child's temper tantrum. The only thing that came close was the Blight and even that... that wasn't _this_.

Hawke opened his mouth to say something. He wasn't sure what, but he needed to say something, a joke maybe, to laugh in the face of the unimaginable. That was his usual style, wasn't it? But before he could, another pulse of that not-pain, not-electricity shot through him from the mark in his hand, and he found himself on his knees just trying to remember how to breathe.

"Each time the Breach expands, your mark spreads," Cassandra said, bending over to lecture him more closely. "It's killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn't much time."

Hawke latched onto her words like a drowning man. He forced his head up to meet her eyes in spite of the sensations only now beginning to fade. "Stopping it how?"

"I'm... I'm not sure." She looked almost as if she wasn't expecting such a question. "There is someone, a mage. He believes that your mark... that you can use it somehow to close these rifts. That's why I must take you there." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "The dwarf is with him."

"If you've hurt him..." Hawke growled threateningly even though his hands were still bound, and he wasn't completely sure he could stand at that moment. Of all his friends – family, really – Varric was the one who deserved such harsh treatment the least.

She widened her eyes. "He's unharmed, or at least he was when he headed out with Solas. That _is_ why you came here, isn't it? Leliana was right. You were here to rescue him... from what? What did you think we were doing to him?"

"I wouldn't presume to guess, but generally people don't kidnap someone to feed them tea and crumpets," Hawke shot back. "Or are you going to claim that Varric left Kirkwall with you voluntarily? Not that I'd believe you if you did. Varric wouldn't even leave with me, and he _likes_ me."

"I wanted him to tell his story, _your_ story, to–" she tipped her head back and closed her eyes, seemingly in pain "–to Most Holy." Then she frowned fiercely down at him. "Varric said he didn't know where you were. That was a lie, wasn't it? That little r–"

"Really? You kidnap him and interrogate him, and you're surprised when he doesn't want to tell you the truth?" Hawke shook his head, not sure if he was more angry or disbelieving. "You obviously don't know Varric because, if you did, you would've known that the one thing you can count on him doing, every time, is protecting his friends."

Hawke stopped with a sigh before he could say something that would make this whole situation even worse. If there was one thing life had taught him, it was that things could always get worse. "Just like you can count on me being stupid enough to always rush headlong towards the most dangerous part of any crisis."

She seemed to accept his anger stoically enough, but she snorted at his last sentence. "In that case, isn't it time you stood up and agreed to help?"

"I thought I just did," Hawke replied, getting his feet back under him, the after effects of whatever the mark on his hand had done finally fading. "But if you need it put more bluntly, I will do all that I can to stop this." As if he could do anything else. "You have my word."

She nodded, slowly at first and then far more decisively, leaning in to unbind his hands. "We must hurry."

She led him rapidly through the small village, filled with people who clearly hadn't heard the news that he was innocent, at least of this particular heinous crime. Outside Haven there were a lot less in the way of murderous glances and altogether more demons falling from the sky. He grabbed a staff he found after falling off a collapsing bridge, and after some... interesting discussion, Cassandra let him keep it. It wasn't as if he needed one to cast spells, but focus was useful when the supply of demons was clearly not about to run dry.

How many demons were in the Fade anyway? Was it even possible to run out? Would the Fade just keep making more for ever?

As they jogged up an incline, Cassandra called, "We're getting close. You can hear them fighting."

Indeed, the sounds of a close quarters battle were getting louder as they made their way up a set of stairs. Hawke strained, listening for a familiar voice or the distinctive twang of a one of a kind crossbow, but for naught. He told himself that didn't mean anything, that they were still too far away to make out anything that specific, but he couldn't completely quell the worry.

So he did what he always did in these kinds of situations; he hid behind a mask. He tightened his grip on his staff, forced what he was sure was a wolfish grin on his face and said, "Best we hurry to find them then. Being late to a battle is the height of rudeness."

At the top of the steps, the location of the fighting was obvious. Within the ruined walls of an ex-building, a cloud of something green and weirdly crystalline was pulsating in the air a short way off the ground. Around it, demons and people battled. And there, right in the middle of things, was Varric. He seemed unharmed and unruffled, calmly using Bianca to put bolt after bolt into the demons, but Hawke could tell by the clench of his jaw that he was far more worried than he appeared.

As Hawke watched, he saw a demon somehow manage to dodge the rain of arrows and lunge dangerously close to the dwarf; without thinking he threw _Winter's Grasp_ at it, freezing it solid before it could attack. He saw Varric jump back as the spell hit, eyes scanning the battlefield and spotting Hawke in turn.

"About time you got here," Varric called out, directing a clenched-teeth battle grin Hawke's way. He shot a cascade of bolts at the demon popsicle, causing it to shatter. "Thought you were going to sleep away the day in that comfy dungeon of yours and miss all the fun."

"Well, you know how cranky I get if I don't get eight hours," Hawke shot back, feeling the world right itself a tiny bit. "Figured it was best not to chance it." He slammed his staff into the ground, sending a powerful surge of lightning through the group of demons that were advancing on him. "Don't want to ruin my reputation, after all."

His attack destroyed two of the demons, badly frayed as they'd already been. That left just two more. Cassandra and Varric seemed to have one well occupied, and there were soldiers closing on that fight too, so Hawke turned his staff on the other, which was currently looming over a bald elf holding a staff – the mage Cassandra had mentioned, presumably.

A well-placed fireball had the demon dissipating like so much smoke. "Hope you don't mind me cutting in," he said to the elf, moving closer as he scanned the battlefield for more threats. For the moment there appeared to be none, save for the pulsing, crackling, crystalline _rip_ in the air.

The elf didn't answer him, just drew close and grabbed Hawke's left wrist. It was certainly proving very popular today, his wrist; people couldn't wait to get intimate with it. The elf yanked Hawke's arm up and directed his hand at the rip in the air. Hawke felt something, like power being drawn from him, but it wasn't his magic being pulled at... He could _see_ it, a glowing green line of that not-magic, not-electricity, not-pain flowing from the mark on his palm to rip in the air, could feel the tension getting tighter, tauter, heavier until, with a sensation very much like his ears popping, it _snapped_.

Hawke stumbled back a couple of steps with its lack and the slight feeling of light-headedness said lack had brought with it. He looked down at his hand and then up at the sky. The rip was gone.

"Well done, Champion," the elf said, smiling slightly. "I'm pleased to be proven correct about you."

Hawke stared at the now healed air, then once more at his marked hand, and back again. "That was..." _Weird_. "What was that?"

"That was you, healing this smaller rift to the Fade," the elf said, still with that slight smile. "Whatever magic opened the breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorised the mark might be utilised in such a way, especially by a mage of your standing. It seems I was correct."

"Meaning it could also close the Breach itself." Cassandra spoke from behind Hawke.

"Possibly," the elf replied, turning back to Hawke to add, "You may hold the key to our salvation."

The weight that came with that pronouncement was familiar, if heavier than he had known before. _Not just 'Kirkwall' or 'mages', but the whole world..._ He felt himself starting to slump under it and forced himself to stand straight and tall instead. "So this mark does have a use other than being a particularly annoying night light. Good to know."

"And there I thought we'd be ass-deep in demons forever," Varric said, coming to stand at Hawke's side. "Nice trick, Hawke. Think you can do it again?"

"I'm not exactly sure what I did this time," he admitted. "But I'm definitely going to try." He looked Varric over carefully now that he had the chance. The dwarf appeared to be fine, but there was a certain tension around his eyes that hinted at cracks in the façade. "You okay?" he asked in a softer, more genuine voice.

"Shouldn't I be asking _you_ that?" Varric asked. "Maker's balls, when we saw you fall from the Breach..." He trailed off, staring at Hawke with a strange expression on his face.

"I... don't actually remember that part," Hawke said, wishing that they didn't have an audience so he could really talk about it, about how much it scared him. But they did, so he shoved that down as far as he could, knowing that Varric would see it anyway. "I'm not the one who got himself kidnapped by the Chantry," he pointed out, trying to switch the focus of the conversation. "Just how did that happen anyway?"

"This is wasting time," Cassandra interrupted dismissively. "We must get to the Breach. Varric, you should return to Haven now."

He gave her an exasperated look. "Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren't in control any more. You need me."

Even if Cassandra didn't, Hawke certainly did. He needed to have at least one person at his back he could trust. "Varric comes with us," he declared, "but feel free to go back to Haven yourself if you feel like someone has to. I'm sure we can muddle through without you."

" _You_ are not in charge here," she told him, her expression fierce, but then she made a noise of what sounded like disgust and waved a hand as if shooing away the lot of them. "We must hurry," she said, marching off.

"She's right about that at least," the elf said mildly. "My name is Solas, by the way. Come, let us... _hurry_."

Hawke couldn't argue with the need for haste, given the world-ending circumstances. They made their way forward, through several more groups of demons. For all that he didn't trust anyone but Varric, Hawke had to admit that the four of them fought well together. It wasn't the well-oiled, unstoppable machine it would've been if it were Anders and Aveline or Fenris with them instead, but it was better than he would have expected from a group just thrown together bare minutes before.

That made it far easier for Hawke to lose himself in the rhythm of fighting a pitched battle, something familiar even if very little else was. It carried him through killing all the demons at the second rift they came upon, outside some heavy gates. He hesitated only after they were dealt with and all that was left was to close the rift.

He wasn't exactly certain how he'd closed the other one, but held his hand up towards the rift like Solas had before and hoped for the best. To his relief, that seemed to be all that it took. He felt that push-pull of strange energy pour through him to the rift and the stretching tension until, just like before, the rift wound itself closed, and everything snapped back into place.

"Whatever that thing on your hand is, it gets results," Varric remarked. "The right kind of results."

Hawke shot him a tired smile, leaning on his staff for a moment to rest. But it was only a moment before Cassandra was yelling for at guards to open the gates, and they had to continue forward. On the bridge beyond the gate, they finally met with Nightingale again, or Leliana as Cassandra called her. She was with someone in a Chantry uniform whom she introduced as Chancellor Roderick.

Hawke hadn't even opened his mouth to give his best charmed-I'm-sure before Roderick was ordering Cassandra to take Hawke to Orlais to be executed.

"Order me?" she replied scathingly. "You are a glorified clerk, a bureaucrat!"

"And you are a thug," he said, sneering. "But a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!"

"We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor," Nightingale said, implying unexpectedly that this wasn't the same thing. "As you well know."

"Justinia is dead!" he exclaimed.

This was starting to sound like a conversation for which Hawke didn't even need to be present. "Do you think they've forgotten I'm standing right here?" he asked Varric, although loudly enough to be overheard.

"I don't know, Hawke," Varric drawled, shaking his head. "And we were in such a hurry too."

"Here it turns out we could've stopped for a drink, and they wouldn't have even noticed."

Roderick rounded on him. "You think this is a joking matter?" he spat.

"Not at all," Hawke shot back, dropping the sarcasm and fixing the Chancellor with his best 'I am the Champion, and you better shut up and listen to me' glare. "I am well aware just how serious the situation is, which is why I think we should be focusing on ways to close the Breach instead of wasting breath arguing over who is in charge of this disaster."

"He's right," Cassandra said, dismissing whatever the Chancellor was about to shout. "We need to fix this before it's too late."

"How?" Roderick asked, sounding almost more concerned than angry now. "You won't survive long enough to reach the temple, even with all your soldiers."

"It's the quickest route–" Cassandra started.

"But not the safest," Leliana interrupted. "Our forces can charge as a distraction while we go through the mountains."

Cassandra shook her head. "We lost contact with an entire squad on that path."

"Sounds like someone might need rescuing," Varric muttered under his breath.

And that was the final straw that had Hawke putting his foot down. "I'm going through the mountains," he said decisively, gathering Varric up with a glance and starting to move forward. "Are you coming with me or going to continue to stand here arguing and wasting time we don't have?"

Solas simply followed him without a word. Cassandra turned to Leliana. "Bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone."

"On your head be the consequences," Roderick muttered as they all left him behind.

"They always are," Hawke muttered to himself as they left the gathered forces behind them and started up the snowy path.

It was steep and only getting steeper. Throw in the snow and the biting wind and soon Hawke found himself watching his feet in an effort to not slip and fall. And it got worse, getting to a point where the only way forward was a series of ladders fixed into stone walls. Though at least, Hawke thought optimistically as he started climbing, it was much harder to slip and misstep when you were holding on with your hands as well.

As if he had just jinxed himself, that was the moment that his mark chose to pulse again, sending waves of that strange power through his body. Hawke cried out, unable to stop his left hand from spasming in time the pulse. Indeed, he was barely able to stop the instinctual urge to curl his entire body around it, a move that would have been suicidal given his current location. Instead he closed his eyes and held on as tightly as he could with his right hand, waiting for the attack to end.

"Hawke! Hold on, Hawke, I'm coming!" Varric's voice coming from below him.

"Get out of the way, dwarf." Cassandra, of course.

Hawke became aware of protective magic being cast about him – a barrier spell. He somehow doubted it would have the power to cushion a fall onto the rocks below, but he appreciated the effort.

Fortunately, like the times before, the pulse eased fairly quickly, leaving Hawke breathless and dizzy, but once again in full control of his limbs. "I'm all right," he called down, hoping to stop any jostling from causing someone else to fall instead. He allowed himself a brief moment to just breathe with his head resting against the ladder's rungs before resuming the climb.

Hawke shivered as he reached the top of the series of ladders, a narrow walkway of snow-covered boards. They were exposed on the cliff face and the wind was bitter. He rested, leaning against the rock wall on the side of the path that wasn't a precipitous drop while he waited for the others.

Cassandra was first to appear, having obviously won her scuffle with Varric. "The tunnel should be just ahead," she said a little breathlessly, moving to join Hawke at the side. "The path to the temple lies beyond."

"And your missing soldiers are in there somewhere?" Varric asked, hauling himself and Bianca onto the walkway.

Cassandra nodded. "Presumably."

Solas' arrival was far more graceful. "Shall we see what it is that has detained them?" he asked as he joined them.

Although each of them directed concerned glances his way, no one seemed to be willing to mention what had happened – what had almost happened – on the ladder, and Hawke was grateful. It was much easier to pretend you were perfectly fine and to keep going when people didn't point out you that you just almost fell on your face.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed himself away from the wall and started walking towards the cave entrance. "On the bright side," he said, deliberately aiming for his usual joking tone, "it's probably way too cold for giant spiders."

"Clearly you've never heard of the Korcari Frost Spider," Varric said, keeping close. "Biggest of the lot, so I've been told."

Hawke had heard of them actually, having grown up on the edge of the Korcari Wilds and recently having gone to ground there with Anders. "They don't really exist," he said, "although I spent a great deal of time as a boy trying to convince Carver and Bethany that they did."

Varric chuckled. "And there I thought _I_ just made them up."

They were approaching the mouth of the mine entrance, and Hawke slowed, catching the glimpses of shadowy movement inside. The way the others tensed up and reached for their weapons, he wasn't the only one who'd seen it. He glanced at Varric as he reached for his staff. "I'm blaming you if we run into one now."

But no, it was more demons. Of course it was demons. Well, no one could say he was inexperienced in the art of killing them. What turned out to be a short path through the mountain was made significantly longer by the fighting, but it was all starting to feel almost everyday, at least compared to glowing green hands and giant rifts in the sky.

It wasn't until they emerged out the other side that they found the bodies. "I guess we found the missing soldiers," Varric said with a sigh.

"Dammit," Hawke bit out. It had been the most likely outcome, granted, but still he'd hoped. He should've known better.

Cassandra was frowning down at the bodies. "That... cannot be all of them."

"So the others could be holed up ahead?" Varric asked, the rekindled hope in his voice a match for what Hawke was feeling, more fool the both of them.

Hawke didn't say anything, just exchanged a knowing glance with Varric and started down the path at a much quicker pace, clinging to that one small hope in the face of catastrophe. If you couldn't stop the world from blowing up, you focused on saving what lives you could. It was, after all, how they'd both managed to make it through the horror of what had happened at Kirkwall. It would be how they made it through this as well.

"Our priority must be the Breach," Solas insisted from behind him. "Unless we seal it soon, no one is safe."

And then there was always someone who couldn't stop looking at the big picture to see the people being hurt along the way. "Tell me something I don't know," Hawke snapped. "But I'm not going to just leave those soldiers to die if I can help it."

"You'll have to forgive Chuckles, Hawke," Varric said. "He put a lot of work into keeping you alive after your sky tumble. I suspect he's impatient to see his investment pay off."

"You _could_ put it that way," Solas replied somewhat waspishly. "I wouldn't."

The sounds of fighting up ahead chased away whatever retort Hawke might have made. He broke into a run, rounding a corner and coming upon the remaining soldiers engaged in close quarters combat with yet another host of demons while a rift glowed sickly green above their heads. Hawke didn't hesitate, just threw himself forward into the fray, the others on his heels.

They made quick work of the demons, and Hawke waved his hand at the rift and closed it, the sensations of doing so already starting to become familiar.

Solas walked forward as the green energy banished, peering almost cautiously at him. "Sealed as before. You are becoming quite proficient at this, Champion."

"Let's hope it works for the big one," Varric added.

Cassandra was helping a fallen soldier to her feet. She redirected the woman's voluble gratitude. "Thank our prisoner, Lieutenant. He insisted we come this way."

"The prisoner?" The soldier turned to look at him, and Hawke saw her eyes widen. "Champion! Then you–"

Hawke gave her his best courtly bow. "All in a day's work, serrah," he said grandly. He gave Solas a meaningful glance. "It was worth the risk."

"Of course," Solas said agreeably.

"You have my sincere gratitude, Champion," the soldier said with a formal salute.

The soldiers headed off back through the mountain pass while it remained clear, while the rest of them continued on the path to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Ladders and a steep path down led to a bleak and smoky area, jagged black rocks veined with something green and glowing looming at the side of the path. They seemed to throb with some kind of power.

It made Hawke uneasy, if the present crisis left him any room to be made _more_ uneasy. The whole landscape was wrong and getting more wrong the further they went. When they reached close enough to the temple to start seeing bodies – twisted, ash-covered husks frozen forever in agony and terror – and experience the smell that accompanied them, Hawke had to swallow hard to keep from retching.

Maker's breath, what could have caused this? This was a thousand times worse than the explosion in Kirkwall. How had he survived?

"They say a woman was in the rift behind you when you fell," Cassandra said pensively as they made their way through the rubble and still burning fires. "They couldn't see who she was."

Hawke had a flash of a feminine hand reaching out to him, but try as he might there was nothing more. "I still can't remember," he said, voice coming out as hushed in spite of his frustration. This scenery encouraged hushed voices.

Then they were walking out onto some kind of balcony, and below, in the great ruin beyond, was a huge rift, seemingly linked directly to the crackling, throbbing Breach in the sky above.

"The Breach is a long way up," Varric observed from Hawke's side as they both stared up at it.

"Anybody got a really long ladder?" Hawke quipped, only half-joking. He had no idea how he was going to get to that thing. "Or are we just going to launch me at it from a catapult and hope for the best?"

"You might not have to reach it," Solas said. "This rift below was the first. Seal it, and perhaps we also seal the Breach."

"Then we must find a way down." Cassandra looked to the side of the area with the railings. It looked as if the ruined temple there might be solid enough to form a path in that direction.

They began to make their way down it, breaking into a trot when the ground was flat enough to allow it. There was a smell in the air here, different from the awful scorched flesh of the corpses earlier, metallic and sharp.

"BRING FORTH THE SACRIFICE," a voice boomed, apparently from all around them. Something about it sent shivers running through Hawke, and it wasn't the words themselves or the omnipresent source. It was almost as if he'd heard the voice before.

Maybe he had.

"What," he asked shakily, "was that?"

"At a guess?" Solas replied far more calmly than Hawke was feeling. "The person who created the Breach." That was far from a reassuring answer, but Hawke swallowed down his unease and continued forward. There wasn't much else he could do.

And then they rounded another corner and came upon a sight that threw him ten years into the past. "Please tell me that I'm hallucinating and that isn't red lyrium growing out of the floor like particularly malevolent icicles," he begged. The last time Hawke had seen so much of the stuff had been during that thrice-cursed expedition into the Deep Roads.

"I see it too, Champion," Cassandra confirmed. Disappointing – it would have made him feel so much better if this had all been just a case of him losing his mind.

"But what is it doing here?" Varric asked plaintively, understandably so. He, if anything, had even worse memories of the stuff than Hawke's.

"Magic could have drawn on lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it..." Solas didn't exactly sound convinced by his own theory.

The crystals were huge and either smoking or colouring the ambient smoke a sickly scarlet. "It's evil," Varric warned. "Whatever you do, don't touch it."

"KEEP THE SACRIFICE STILL."

"And just when you thought things couldn't get any creepier," Hawke muttered under his breath. Red lyrium? Phantom voices talking about sacrifices? This was definitely the stuff of nightmares right here.

Another voice echoed around them. _"Someone, help me!"_ A woman's voice, Orlesian accent. Like with the first voice, it sounded almost familiar to Hawke.

Cassandra actually paled at the sound. "That is Divine Justinia's voice."

"She's still alive?" Varric asked, adding, "Where?"

"Maybe not," Solas replied. "I think what we're hearing may be memories. Fade echoes."

A short jump took Hawke to a more open area dominated by the huge rift. It shone a sickly green light over everything and throbbed with a low noise that seemed to hurt something deep in his ears. His left hand began to throb with it.

_"What's going on– _You_. It can't be!"._

"That was _your_ voice," Cassandra said, the words not quite an accusation. "Most Holy called out to you, but–" She trailed off as the air around the rift seemed to grow denser, almost smoky until Hawke, maybe all of them, could see images in it.

A shadowy figure with red eyes. An old woman – the Divine – being held captive with some kind of magic. Hawke saw himself run in. "What's going on– _You._ " He saw the his expression change, saw anger and disbelief. "It can't be!"

"Run while you can! Warn them!" the Divine called out.

The other figure still remained nothing but a shadow with piercing red eyes that were now fixed on the image of Hawke. "You're too late to stop me." The eyes looked elsewhere at something he couldn't see. "We have an intruder. Slay the Hawke."

Then the whole vision disappeared in a flare of light.

"You _were_ there!" Cassandra spoke from behind Hawke while he was still blinking from the vision. "Who attacked? And the Divine, is she–? Was this vision true?"

"Like I said, memories, echoes of what happened here," Solas replied from where he was staring at the rift. "The Fade bleeds into this place." As Cassandra hurried to his side, he added, "This rift is closed but not sealed. It will open again and flood this area with confused and angry spirits, unless we open it first–" he turned to Hawke "–and you seal it."

Hawke tried to shake the uncomfortable feelings – and questions – with which the vision had left him and focused his attention on the elf. "If I open it, we're going to have to deal with whatever comes through before I can seal it."

"Better us than those who are unprepared," Solas said with a short nod.

"Demons incoming!" Cassandra gave orders to the soldiers who had arrived with Leliana. "Prepare yourselves."

The soldiers moved rapidly to take positions, archers choosing higher ground, swordsmen moving cautiously around the rift. Leliana stayed closer but drew her bow.

"Stand ready!" Cassandra called.

Hawke exchanged glances with Varric, before taking a deep breath and raising his hand to point at the crackling, shifting, crystalline structure hanging in mid-air. "Here goes nothing," he muttered as he felt the mark begin to pull the energy through him. The rift abruptly exploded open in a burst of light – light that instead of dissipating seemed to solidify, coalescing into the shape of a huge pride demon.

After that, things got messy as battles were wont to do.

This pride demon was far bigger than any that Hawke had faced before, and he found himself wondering as he fought if that was the Breach's effect. It kept him from dwelling on how the fight itself felt wrong. He hadn't taken on anything as tough or big as this since Kirkwall, and it just didn't feel right to be fighting without Anders there with him to coordinate their spells, weave their magic together. Oh, Solas seemed a more than competent mage, but it wasn't the same thing at all. But, oh Maker, he was suddenly so glad he'd forbidden Anders to come with him here. Even if his lover had somehow survived the explosion, people like Cassandra would have been falling over themselves to blame him for it and execute him on the spot.

"Almost like old times, yeah, Hawke?" Varric called as he somersaulted back from the melee scrum.

_That_ part felt right at least. "Almost," he called back, sending a fireball directly at the demon's back. "Too quiet without everyone snarking at each other though."

"We need to find a way to get through this monster's thick hide, Champion," Cassandra shouted. "Our attacks are hardly scratching it."

Hawke bit back the 'Really? I hadn't noticed,' realising this probably wasn't the right audience. He glanced up at the open rift above him, the mark on his palm pulsing in time with its energy, and he suddenly had an idea.

"Let me try something," he said and held out his hand, letting the mark connect to the rift. Again there was that drag of energy that he was getting used to already, but this time it didn't seal the rift, just seemed to... quell it somehow.

"Whatever you just did, Hawke," Varric yelled, "do it some more!"

"It's working," Cassandra called out. "Hit as hard as you can before it recovers!"

Hawke joined in with the rest, casting as many destructive spells as he could while he waited for the tingling in his palm to come back, figuring that would mean he could try to do whatever it was he had just done again.

The demon was just starting to recover offensively when Hawke felt the now familiar pulse of the mark, and he raised his hand towards the rift again and repeated the same tactic with the same beneficial results.

They repeated the cycle several more times, Hawke quieting the rift with his mark and them all wearing down the demon's defences while it seemed stunned. All while dancing around to avoid some minor demons that also pushed through. Finally, the big demon stumbled and fell to one knee. Hawke's spell and Varric's bolt hit it simultaneously, and it collapsed, dead.

"Now! Seal the rift!" Solas shouted.

"Do it!" Cassandra ordered.

Hawke held his hand up towards the rift and let the mark do its thing like he had at all the others, but this time it felt different. Instead of just feeling like a conduit for the energy being poured into the rift, this time it felt like it was pulling the energy directly from Hawke's own. Not only his mana, but maybe even his life force too. He felt himself start to weaken, and he gritted his teeth with the effort to keep standing. He would not falter; he would not fall. He would close this damned thing even if it took every last iota of what he was.

His vision was tunnelling now, his entire focus shrinking to the slowly mending rift. With one final effort, Hawke threw the dregs of his energy at it and was rewarded with the feeling of the rift snapping closed, throwing Hawke backwards to the ground.

That was the last thing he knew before it all went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke goes from _Yes_ to _Oh Maker, all of the nopes in Thedas._

Well, one thing was for sure, Varric thought, with all the beauty sleep Hawke was getting, he should be nigh on irresistible now.

He sighed and rubbed at his sore eyes. He was determined to stay awake until Hawke was too, however long it took, but doing so was getting harder. It helped that the chair he was currently perched on was uncomfortably high.

Hawke himself had been laid relatively gently on the only bed here. Cassandra's people had allocated their champion rift-sealer a small cottage for his quarters, which was one up on Varric's tiny tent. In fact, it seemed likely to be the best lodgings in Haven, from what Varric had seen, so Hawke's status had definitely moved up from 'jailbird'.

He looked peacefully asleep, but Varric wasn't sure he trusted his own eyes, or the word of the local apothecary for that matter. Closing that last rift had done more than drain Hawke. The effort had seemed to bleach him of all colour before dropping him senseless.

"Come on, Hawke, wake up. You're missing all the fun. If you don't wake up soon, we'll have to send one of Leliana's ravens to fetch Blondie, and explaining all this to him is not something I want to be doing any time soon."

He wasn't really expecting a reaction to his words, but Varric could swear he just saw Hawke stir slightly, a faint frown crossing his features.

"Hawke? I might've guessed mentioning Blondie would get you to stir your stumps." Varric slipped down from the chair and moved to the edge of the bed, watching Hawke's face carefully. "You _are_ stump-stirring, aren't you?"

Hawke suddenly sat straight up, startling Varric enough to have him stumbling backwards. It took a couple of moments to be sure he wasn't going to end up on the floor on his ass, but once he'd regained his balance, he found Hawke looking wild-eyed at their surroundings as if he were one second away from springing from the bed, grabbing his staff, and incinerating something.

"Hey! Hawke! Best guess? What you were just seeing was a dream. No flash-frying your trusty dwarf best friend here, okay?"

That got him Hawke's gaze focused entirely on him, and while the man still looked dazed and confused, he no longer seemed panicked or homicidal. Varric was going to count that as a win. Hawke blinked at him once, twice, then finally spoke, voice more than a little hoarse. "Varric?"

"That's me," Varric answered, letting himself relax a little. "The one and only. We're in Haven. You sealed the rift. The Breach is still out there, but it's quieter for now. How are you feeling?"

Hawke paused before answering, and Varric could practically see him taking inner stock. "Honestly, a lot better than I expected. That's a pretty low bar, though, since I expected to wake up dead." Another quick look at Varric, gaze sharp and assessing this time. "You okay?"

"Better for seeing you awake and making sense. I should warn you, last time I looked, there was quite a crowd milling about out there." Varric nodded his head in the general direction of the door. "Might want to stay in here a while."

Hawke groaned and flopped back down on the bed. "Out for my blood or my autograph?" he asked. "Or both?"

"Well, I suppose a vial or two of your blood could be a useful investment," Varric answered, tongue firmly in cheek as he sat down on the edge of the bed. "What is the going rate for holy relics these days, any way?"

Hawke went absolutely still at that. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"Just don't be surprised if anyone calls you 'Herald' is all I'm saying," Varric replied with a slight wince.

"Herald of what exactly?" Hawke asked. "Though I'm getting the impression I really don't want to know."

"The woman they said was behind you when you fell from the Breach? Some of them think it was Andraste, that she sent you with the mark to, I dunno, fix things I guess." Varric rubbed his face, sighing. "It's only a few saying this for now, but, well, I've seen this kind of thing before when times are hard. We both have. People look for hope wherever they can find it. It'll spread, mark my words."

"Of course it will," Hawke said wryly. He sat back up and swung his feet over the side of the bed until he was sitting beside Varric. "Maker's breath, they really think I'm sent by Andraste?" He scrubbed his hands over his face and hair. "And I thought being Champion was bad."

"You, my friend, never have mastered the art of the low profile. Talking of which..." Now what was the most tactful way to put this? "You came here alone?"

Hawke's mouth quirked up into a half smirk. "You mean, did I bring the man who arguably started the Mage-Templar war – and who most definitely is still number one on the Chantry's most wanted list – to the Chantry-sponsored peace talks? I may be stupid, Varric, but I'm not _that_ stupid."

"So where is he?" Varric really didn't want to ask if Hawke had left the barely stable abomination to his own devices, but... had he?

"Safe." Hawke blew out his breath in a long sigh. "Though the last time I saw him, he was angry enough with me to practically spit nails. He didn't like my choice of babysitter."

Ah. "Let me guess? Slim and pointy, enough brood to fell an army?"

Hawke chuckled. "Got it in one. You're lucky you're everyone's favourite dwarf, or I'd never have been able to get either of them to agree. When I left, they were sitting on opposite sides of the cabin glaring at each other."

"I can imagine." Varric laughed. "You sure they're safe with each other?"

"Giddy's babysitting both of them."

"Perfect," Varric said and laughed again at the thought of a mabari overseer for the pair. It was odd how good it felt to just chat with Hawke, or really, maybe not _that_ odd. What with Hawke and Anders hiding out in the middle of the Korcari wilderness ever since fleeing Kirkwall, his own abduction, and now Hawke's repeated spells of unconsciousness, it had been a while. "So, are you really okay? Need anything?"

"I don't suppose you can conjure up a couple of horses for us and an exit plan?" Hawke asked with his trademark wry humour.

"Horses seem to be a bit of an issue here right now, although 'going to look for some' might work as an exit plan." Varric stood and walked over to the small window. "I, erm, should tell you that there are still rifts out there, further afield, according to Leliana's scouts. Lots of them."

There was silence behind him for a moment and then in a much softer voice, Hawke said, "So... the world's still ending, it's just being slower about it?"

"Afraid so. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news." Varric turned back to face Hawke. "None of this is your fault, I know. Normally I'd be all for a quick getaway, but you're the only one..." he trailed off, staring at Hawke's left hand.

For a moment Hawke was completely still and then his shoulders slumped, his entire body bowing as if under immense weight. Later on, Varric thought, he would look back and remember this as the moment that Hawke took on the responsibility of saving the entire world, and how in those first few seconds he couldn't hide the cost to himself.

But then Hawke took a deep breath and straightened dramatically, all strength and intent and bull-headed stubbornness to keep going no matter what. "I suppose then I better go have a chat to whomever's in charge so we can figure out a battle plan."

"They're at the Chantry, last I heard. Hawke..." Varric reach a hand out to Hawke's arm as the man moved from the bed ready to head to the door.

"Later, Varric," Hawke broke in, voice wavering just slightly as he added, "Please."

Respecting Hawke's wishes, for how could he not, Varric waited until Hawke had walked through the door before whispering, "I only wanted to say I'm sorry." After all, if Hawke hadn't come here to rescue him, Andraste would have had to choose someone else.

***

Hawke did the best he could to ignore the hushed murmurings of the crowd as he made his way up to the Chantry. He remembered the same thing happening back in Kirkwall, especially in the days immediately following his defeat of the Arishok, but even if that made it kind of familiar, it didn't mean he was used to it. Far from it. He never would get used to people looking to him for some kind of _salvation_.

Maker's breath, he could barely keep the ones closest to him alive and whole and out of trouble. There was more than enough impending failure involved in just that; he didn't want any more. Not that what he wanted ever seemed to have any bearing on what he got.

Still, things could be worse, or so he told himself trying to get out of the self-pitying downward spiral into which he seemed about to fall. Having people whisper about him in awe was marginally better than being the target of their hate. At least this way he didn't have to worry about being ready to dodge rotten vegetables thrown at his head. Or other things. Like daggers. Regardless, he was glad when he reached the chantry and was able to slip through its large wooden doors into the relative quiet within.

It was a small building, as chantries went, and had been cleared of pews if it had ever held them. It was also empty of Inquisition leaders, but as he walked further in, he became aware of raised voices. They were coming from behind the door directly ahead.

"Have you gone completely mad?" someone was demanding. "He should be taken to Val Royeaux immediately, to be tried by whomever becomes Divine!"

"I do not believe he is guilty." That was Cassandra's voice, he was pretty sure.

"The prisoner failed, Seeker. The Breach is still in the sky. For all you know, he intended it this way."

Hawke snorted to himself. It wasn't the first time he'd heard someone invent insane conspiracies that flew in the face of known facts just to be able to continue to place blame where they wanted it. It had practically been the norm back in Kirkwall. Suddenly he was feeling right at home.

"I do not believe that." At least Cassandra now appeared to be on his side.

"That is not for you to decide. Your duty is to serve the Chantry."

"My duty is to serve the principles on which the Chantry was founded, Chancellor. As is yours."

Now there was an interesting little distinction being made, Hawke thought, as he reached the door and pushed it open, letting it bang against the wall loudly as he did so. He was gratified to see the Chancellor – Roderick, wasn't that his name? – jump at his entrance, although neither Cassandra nor Leliana, who was also present, did so.

"I see you've started without me," Hawke said in the ensuing silence. "Just so I know what I should say, are we discussing ways to save the world or arguing over which form of execution you want to subject me to?"

"Chain him!" Roderick ordered the two guards by the door, pointing at Hawke with a sneer on his face. "I want him prepared for travel to the capital for trial."

"Disregard that," Cassandra said, straightening up from where she'd been leaning on a large table, "and leave us." It was gratifying to see that the guards obeyed her and not the Chancellor.

Hawke eyed her carefully. "So I take it I'm no longer under arrest?" he asked her directly, ignoring Roderick entirely. It was obvious he wasn't the one with power here, no matter how much squawking he was doing.

"You absolutely are under arrest," Roderick said, apparently ignoring the fact he was being ignored.

"No, he is not," Cassandra said firmly.

Finally, Leliana spoke. "Someone was behind the explosion at the conclave," she said, striding over to confront the Chancellor. "Someone Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others – or have allies who yet live."

"I–" is all Roderick was able to splutter before Leliana interrupted with,

"You, and many others."

Cassandra turned to Hawke. "I heard the voices in the temple, Champion. The Divine called to you for help. From what, unless you remember further, we can only imagine, but it seems obvious you are not to blame for whatever was happening."

Well, that made things easier. He nodded his acknowledgement and looked between her and Leliana. "So what happens now?"

"The Breach remains," Leliana said, "and your mark is still our only hope of closing it."

"Oh yes, the oh so convenient mark that can open rifts as well as close them." Roderick raised his voice. "Yes, I know what happened at the temple. Can't you see what a dangerous path you are walking, Seeker, trusting this man? Didn't he already bring Kirkwall to its knees?"

Despite the flash of anger that surged through him when Roderick brought Kirkwall into the argument, Hawke knew it wasn't a point without merit. Everything falling apart in Kirkwall might indeed have been inevitable, but it had been his lover who'd pulled out that last remaining support, and Hawke should've seen what was happening and stopped Anders before he did that.

In the end, though, that ever present guilt just made him all the more angry. He rounded on the Chancellor. "So if I'm not to be trusted to help, just what is your alternative plan to close the Breach? Close your eyes and wish really hard?"

Before Roderick could stop spluttering and answer, there was a thump beside them. Cassandra had dropped a huge tome onto the table. A waft of old book smell hit Hawke as dust rose from it. It was bound in leather and embossed with the Seekers' eye. "You know what this is, Chancellor?"

"He might, but I don't," Hawke said, glancing between the suddenly aghast looking Roderick and the book. "Unless it's the book you're going to beat him to death with. In which case, good pick. Looks heavy enough to get the job done."

"It's a writ from from the Divine," Cassandra explained, turning to face Hawke, "granting us the authority to act. As of this moment," she continued, stepping back to address the whole room, "I declare the Inquisition reborn."

She strode to Roderick, her gloved finger reaching out to prod him in the chest, giving emphasis to each part of what she went on to say. "We will close the Breech; we will find those responsible, and we will restore order. With or without your approval."

It was with more delight than was proper that Hawke watched Roderick's face scrunch up, as if he'd just bitten into something sour. Without another word, the Chancellor turned and stormed out of the room.

Hawke let some of that delight show as he turned back to Cassandra. "That was almost as satisfying as beating him to death with the book would've been."

The corners of her mouth twitched delightfully, but all she said was, "We do not kill those who disagree with us, unless they do it with a sword."

Leliana placed her hand on the book. "This is the Divine's directive: rebuild the Inquisition of old, find those who will stand against the chaos." She took a breath before continuing. "We aren't ready. We have no leader, no numbers and now no Chantry support, but we have no choice. We must act now–" she looked searchingly at Hawke "–with you at our side."

Hawke had been bracing for that, had expected that question since Varric had told him how bad things still looked. And as much as part of him wished he could refuse and run back to the cabin he shared with Anders, keep his head down and pretend that someone else would come along and fix everything, he knew that wasn't really even an option. He was the one with the mark; he was the only one who had a hope of closing that thing. Andraste or not, _something_ had chosen to place this burden on him.

Maybe this was a chance at atonement, as much as he might have wished to continue wallowing in the grief and guilt with which Kirkwall had left him. A chance to fix things like he hadn't been able to back then. 'If you want something done right, you do it yourself,' his father had always said, and saving the world was something that Hawke had an invested interest in making sure was done right.

"Nightingale," he said, holding out his hand to her with his best 'put on a show' smile, "I thought you'd never ask."

*

Hawke made his escape from the Chantry soon after, leaving the two formidable women to wrangle whatever details were involved in declarations of Inquisition. Those kind of details were never Hawke's strong suit, and he was more than happy to leave them to it. Well-timed inspirational speeches and dramatic battles defeating overwhelmingly powerful opponents he was good at, fiddling little political details not so much.

Besides he had more important things to deal with right now, like trying to talk Varric out of the guilt he'd seen shining in the dwarf's eyes earlier.

He retraced his steps back to the little cabin where he'd woken, but as he'd feared, Varric wasn't there any more. He knew how Varric reacted to things, however, and the chances were high that if there was a tavern to be found in Haven, that would be where he'd find him.

It took Hawke several attempts at asking people before he got an answer – the first woman he'd spoken to had squeaked and run away, and the boy he'd asked next had just stared at him in dumbstruck awe – but he eventually acquired directions to the local drinking establishment and started making his way there. It wasn't far, and he was about to make his no doubt much talked about entrance when he heard a voice from behind calling,

"Champion! Ser Hawke, wait up. We should speak."

He looked around to see a very familiar figure. That is, very familiar in Kirkwall, not here. Tall, short blond curls, and wearing not his usual armour, but a different design with a red cloak topped with fur shoulders – what was the Knight Commander of Kirkwall doing here?

Usually when faced with a known templar, Hawke's first instinct, born of years of being an apostate and honed to a fine edge since the war broke out, was to tense up and prepare to either fight or run. But this was Cullen, who even at the height of the badness in Kirkwall, back when he'd been Knight Captain, had always seemed a good man underneath it all. And the last time Hawke had seen him they had been fighting as allies against Meredith, after which Cullen had let them all go without a word – even Anders.

So it was with less wariness and more respect that Hawke greeted him. "I won't say you're the last person I expected to run into here, but you would definitely make the short list," he said, holding out a hand to shake.

Cullen took it in both of his and shook it firmly before stepping slightly back. "It's good to see you up and about. And ah, yes, I know that feeling. When they told me who it was who had fallen from the Breach, I found it hard to believe to begin with..." he trailed off, frowning, before adding, "I'm sorry that we had to imprison you initially. I, uh, well, it was hard to forget the last appalling explosion I had witnessed and..." he trailed off again.

And that was not the unwavering and certain Knight Captain that Hawke remembered. The embarrassed stumbling over words was almost charming, and the apology an unexpected but pleasant surprise. "Even I have to admit it looked bad," Hawke said. "I probably would have suspected me as well."

Cullen smiled and briefly looked down. "Right. Well, I guess we should discuss the business at hand. I'm not sure if you've been told, but I'm in charge of the military side of this, uh, endeavour, such as it is. You will need to liaise with me regarding troop movements and defence, just as you will Leliana concerning matters of intelligence, and Lady Montilyet for our efforts in diplomacy. I–"

"Down to business just like that?" Hawke asked, feeling his eyebrows raise. No doubt this was information he needed to know, but it seemed an abrupt transition.

"I, uh, sorry." Cullen paused and took a breath. "Maker, I never even asked if you were recovered, did I?"

"I seem to be, thank you," Hawke replied, a little fascinated as he watched Cullen awkwardly try to make conversation. "Were you always this bad at small talk, and I just didn't notice because of the templar and apostate thing?"

"It's not exactly something they teach during templar training," Cullen said ruefully. "Although now I'm no longer part of the Order, I should perhaps try to do better." His expression seemed to suggest he had little hope of succeeding.

"You left the Order?" Hawke asked, latching onto that one part of what Cullen had said. He realised he sounded almost disbelieving. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound shocked, but it's just you were always so very.... templar. And I mean 'templar' in the most non-dogmatic, non-sadistic way possible."

Looking somewhat taken back at Hawke's last sentence, Cullen stuttered a bit before replying, "Thank you. I think. Cassandra recruited me in Kirkwall. After Knight Commander Meredith... well, what happened to her, and you being the only one who seemed to be able to begin to handle _that_ mess... Well, I was left with a lot of questions, about the Order and about a lot of other things. The Inquisition seemed to be the answer to at least some of them."

"If there was one thing that Kirkwall left everyone with, it was questions," Hawke said, thinking about how much of what he'd thought and believed he'd found himself re-evaluating, and how, to this day, he hadn't managed to resolve all the emotional conflicts with which it had left him. It seemed like Cullen might be doing better at that than he was.

"How are your..." Cullen hesitated before finishing the question with, "those you left in Kirkwall or elsewhere?"

Hawke found himself tensing at the question, part of him unable not to see it as fishing for clues about Anders' whereabouts. He reeled in his paranoia and answered as best he could. "Aveline's still going strong as Guard Captain as you know. If there's still a Kirkwall standing, it's in large part due to her efforts as well as your own. She's even stopped chastising me for the mess I left her." Not that the scolding had ever really been serious, Hawke knew.

"My brother Carver's off with the wardens, doing warden... stuff," he continued. "That's about as specific as he ever gets when he writes. Isabela got ahold of a really big hat and started calling herself 'Admiral'. I've never been sure if that's cause and effect, or just two things that happened close together. Merrill's still doing her best to look after the groups of refugees she finds. I'd like to say it keeps her out of trouble, but..." He shrugged. "Fenris has taken up hunting down slavers as a hobby, which is the opposite of keeping out of trouble, but someone has to do it. Varric's apparently been busy getting himself kidnapped and interrogated as you must know, given that you were recruited by the person who did it."

"We travelled over the Waking Sea together," Cullen said with a grimace that hopefully had nothing to do with Varric. "Cassandra can be a difficult person to say no to, but your friend is free to leave now, should he wish it."

"He won't," Hawke said bluntly, "not when I'm still tangled in this whole thing. He feels responsible for that." Not that Varric had come out and said it, but Hawke had seen it in his eyes.

Cullen just fidgeted in reply, apparently all out of small talk.

Hawke took pity on the man. "You said something about needing to liaise with me about troop movements...?"

"Ah, yes, right." The gratitude in the man's eyes was almost funny. He stood up straighter and seemed more his old self. "Did the others talk to you about Mother Giselle?"

"Is that another Chantry official that Cassandra kicked out?"

"Another? Oh, you've met the Chancellor. Of course. No, the Mother has a far more hands-on approach to doing the Chantry's work as I understand it. She's in the middle of the Ferelden Hinterlands right now, doing her best to aid the refugees from the war. That is–" he coughed "–the Mage-Templar war and not whatever this new threat is. She has sent a message that she'd like to talk to you."

Hawke couldn't keep the frown from his face. "About what's happening or about what happened in the past?"

"I'm not sure she even knows who you are, Champion. She asked for the Herald of Andraste."

"Of course she did." The absurdity of it all made Hawke chuckle. "I _really_ wasn't looking for another impossible to live up to title, I swear."

"You have quite a collection, it seems," Cullen said with another of his slanted smiles. "How do you feel about the latest?"

"Like I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do when I make it back home," he admitted wryly.

"Ah, yes, of course." And that was the perfect prompt for Cullen to ask about Anders, whom Hawke had carefully left out of his earlier list, but for some reason Cullen didn't take the opportunity. "Anyway, if you're heading for the Hinterlands, I wonder if you might locate and attempt to recruit a horsemaster there. We need him, or at least his stable."

That brought a smile to Hawke's face, remembering the discussion with Varric about exit strategies and horses earlier. Of course it would turn into something he legitimately needed to do. "I'll keep it in mind, but right now the only place I'm heading is to the tavern. Hopefully no one is under the impression that the Herald of Andraste has to remain sober."

"I've no doubt people have all sorts of impressions about the Herald already, including many who've never met you, but I wouldn't let that keep you from a drink or two. I'd join you if I didn't have so much to get sorted."

And with that, Cullen gave a military style nod and strode off back the way he'd come.

***

If Varric shut his eyes and tried very hard, he could almost imagine he was back in the Hanged Man. Sure, the smell was all wrong; there wasn't nearly enough noise, and the ale in the mug he was nursing tasted like a mabari had pissed in the barrel, but if he tried really hard...

Oh, who was he kidding.

The distinctive sound of a tankard hitting the table in front of him made him open his eyes again to see Hawke taking the seat across from him with a drink of his own in hand. "Turns out being the Herald of Andraste gets you free drinks," Hawke said by way of greeting. He nodded towards the tankard he'd put down in front of Varric. "Let's take advantage of that perk, shall we?"

"Wait until you've tasted it. You might change your mind about it being a perk." Nonetheless, Varric pushed his stale mug aside and took a swig from the new one. "Hmm, either it's growing on me, or you get given the good stuff. Almost approaching halfway towards decent."

"As long as it doesn't entirely strip the nerves from my throat, it's good enough," Hawke replied, taking a long swig from his own drink and then grimacing. "It's lucky I have low standards."

"Lucky for the rest of us, anyhow," Varric said wryly, toasting Hawke with his ale. He took a moment to look his friend over. He looked liked Hawke – tall and proud, wisecracking all over and taking everything in his stride. It was a relief to see it even if Varric couldn't quite get the memory of Hawke's waking reaction back in the cabin out of his head. "Have a nice little chat with Cassandra?"

"It was entertaining at least. Got to see her chase that ass Roderick out with little more than a glare and a pointed finger. That was fun." Hawke took another drink. "Then she declared the Inquisition, and I officially joined," he added, faux casually.

"So," Varric said, sitting back in his chair as he tried to take that in, "you're officially a member of the Chantry now? How's Blondie going to take that?"

"Actually, I think throwing Roderick out was symbolic of Cassandra breaking the Inquisition away from the Chantry, so I'm only officially a member of the Inquisition. And, apparently, a new religious figure." Hawke grimaced. "And Anders is going to take that about as well as you think, though hopefully the fact that the alternative would have been me dead will soften his outrage."

Varric sighed heavily. "You're gonna have to send word to him, you know, and quickly. If he hears any of this through other sources, he's either going to think you're dead, mad, or being coerced, and in any of those cases..."

"I know." Hawke sighed heavily. "I can't even trust Fenris to hold him back because the importance of me not getting myself killed may be the one thing they actually agree on."

"The dog too," Varric said with a chuckle. "So what does it even mean, joining the Inquisition? They get to have you at their beck and call?"

"I'm a little fuzzy on the whole command structure and where I fit in, but I think everyone knows I'll demand a bit more autonomy than that."

"Well, you do hold the monopoly on magic, rift-sealing appendages; as bargaining positions go, they don't get much stronger than that." Varric paused to swig down more ale; it was definitely better than the swill they'd sold him. "You've met them all? I bet Cullen came as a surprise."

Hawke chuckled. "To put it mildly. Never thought he would ever leave the templars, but he seemed more... human? I think I might actually be able to like him as well as respect him now."

"Once you've seen someone puke themselves empty a few times you kind of lose all fear of them," Varric said, grinning. "To say he's a bad sailor is an understatement, and this is me talking."

"I think I'm happy to have missed that particular interaction," Hawke said wryly. He looked down at his drink, his expression becoming serious again. "Varric?"

Uh-oh, here came something. He put his tankard down ready to deal with whatever it was. "Yes, Hawke?"

Hawke was carefully not looking at him. "If I can get him safe passage, what do you think about me sending for Anders?"

Varric felt his jaw drop. "Maker's balls, Hawke! He'll need more than safe passage. Way, way more." He shook his head and whistled slowly, lowering his tone as he realised he'd garnered attention from the other patrons. "I know I said you had bargaining power, but... Cullen isn't the only ex-templar here, you know, and independence or not, there's still a swarm of Chantry uniforms milling about this place. Blondie wouldn't last a day without finding someone whose grudge was enough to overwhelm sense."

He could see Hawke's frown getting deeper the longer he talked. "I leave him out there on his own, it won't take him much longer than a day."

Aw, shit, this wasn't good. Varric rubbed hard at his forehead. "Can't you at least wait a bit? Build up some more trust here first? I know you're indispensable, but Blondie's a big ask for the people here. A lot of them have first hand experience of the war from the wrong side. That being the side that _isn't_ fighting it. Templars and mages both are acting like assholes, pretty much ignoring the plight of the ordinary folk caught up in their tussles. That's when they're not actively stealing from them or worse. And it all started with one man. It'll take a lot for them to forget that."

"Does that go for you too?" Hawke asked, finally looking up to meet his eyes. "You keep talking about everybody else's reactions, about which you're making some valid points, but you haven't said a thing about your own."

Varric blinked, tried not to wince. "Hawke... You're my friend, pretty much my best friend, and hanging with you means getting to hang with him too. Am I one hundred percent comfortable around him? No. He's not... stable, or he's not always himself, or however you want to put it. But he's yours, and for your sake, I don't want anything bad to happen to him."

Hawke let out a breath. "That's honest. Not entirely what I wanted to hear, but honest. Thank you. I'll hold off on asking him to come for now."

Varric sagged as a huge sense of relief hit him. "Thank you. It's bad enough I got you involved in all this. I don't want to be the cause of you losing him too. You've lost more than enough already." He took a deep breath. "Talking of which–"

"This wasn't your fault, Varric," Hawke told him, the melancholy of a moment before disappearing as he fixed Varric with a stern stare.

"Wasn't it? If I hadn't gone and got myself dwarf-napped..."

"Did you walk up to Cassandra on the street and asked to be clamped in chains?"

"No, but I insisted on staying in Kirkwall while the rest of you sensibly made yourself a lot harder to find." Varric leant forward, his elbows on the table. "Honestly, Hawke, you should have just left me to Cassandra. Sooner or later I would've talked myself free. You know me."

"You shouldn't have to," Hawke said, also leaning closer. "She only grabbed you because you're friends with me. If anyone should be apologising here–"

"She grabbed me because I wrote that damned book. You know she stabbed a big knife all the way through my master copy _while_ it was in my sodding lap?" He shook his head ruefully. "Crazy woman."

Hawke blinked. "She stabbed you... in the book?" Another slow blink, his expression deadpan until a chuckle escaped despite his obvious best efforts for it not to.

Now that was good to see. Varric chuckled too. "That's right, have a good laugh about my misfortunes," he said with a grin.

Hawke was still chuckling. "Good thing you aren't a more concise writer or that could've hurt."

"Too right. Next time I don't leave _anything_ out, and I'll insist it's bound with metal plates in the cover!" He shook his head again, still smiling. "Seriously though, Hawke. Watch your step around the seeker. She's the queen of act first, ask questions later. Way later."

"I've noticed that pattern myself," Hawke said wryly. "But don't worry. I fully intend to have a conversation with her about leaving my friends alone if she doesn't want me to take my dwarf and walk."

"For what it's worth, by the end of my, uh, interrogation, I'm pretty sure she was developing a crush on you."

"So you left out all the times you had to pick me up off the Hanged Man's floor and pour me into bed then?"

He raised his eyebrows in mock outrage. "You mean to say you've never read my masterwork? I'm shocked, Hawke. Shocked and hurt." Varric's big grin surely gave the lie to his words.

"Yes, because reading a book about how wonderful and heroic I am isn't the least bit egotistical," Hawke pointed out.

"People wanted 'The Tale of the Champion', and that's exactly what I gave them."

"Yes, you did, and now I have to try and live up to my own fictional reputation. Thanks for that, Varric, really," Hawke said, gesturing with his tankard. He was getting progressively more loose and relaxed the more they talked, and Varric was happy to see it.

"None of it's lies, my friend. Sure, I cleaned things up – took out the pratfalls and glossed over the really painful stuff, but you did those things I wrote about. You _are_ a sodding hero. You've only got yourself to live up to." Varric swigged the last of his ale, before adding, "You know, I've had people doubting you really took out the Arishok in single combat. I just laugh at them."

Hawke looked down at the table, and Varric could see him actually going a bit red. "Someone had to," he muttered, then looked back up again, pointing a finger at Varric as he continued, "And I bet you didn't mention how I would've bled out five minutes after that big areshole actually went down if Anders hadn't been there. Or how I was so cranky the next few weeks that, and I quote, 'life under the Qun might've been preferable to dealing with grumpy ass here'."

"Of course not," Varric answered, unrepentant and ignoring the awful attempt at his accent. "People aren't interested in that kind of aftermath. They need me to jump ahead to the official Champion declaration, all the toasting and praising." He frowned slightly, rethinking Hawke's words. "I do give Anders credit where it's due, Hawke – read it if you doubt me. There's not another spirit healer of his calibre in the Free Marches, and none anywhere that I know of so generous with his abilities. _And_ he's the reason Carver's still up and able to be a pain in your ass. My idiot brother too."

Hawke's expression softened, a little of the mask of joviality slipping to show the genuine affection underneath. "I know you did. Anders has read it, you know, your book. Enough times that his copy is falling apart. He was quiet the first time he finished it. When I finally got him to talk, he said he was surprised that you didn't make him into the cackling villain you could have, even when you made what he did sound as horrific as it really was. That meant a lot to him." He paused. "Thank you."

Varric shrugged. "I tried to be fair to everyone. Well, maybe not Sebastian so much. Every story needs someone to look down on in it, after all." He winked.

Hawke chuckled and shook his head. "Maker, I've missed having you around."

"Yeah, Kirkwall just wasn't the same with you gone. Well, you, the circle mages, most of the templars, and the Chantry building, but I didn't miss the rest of it." Varric looked over as the side door to the tavern opened, and he felt the grimace mess up his good looks instantly when he saw who it was. "Here comes trouble."

Cassandra was heading straight for them too, something long and thin wrapped in sacking in her hand. Varric suspected he knew what it was.

"What can we do for you, Seeker?" Hawke asked as she approached. He shifted his chair a little moving it more directly between the seeker and Varric.

"I'm planning a trip into the Hinterlands, and I'd like you to accompany me, Hawke." She nodded at Varric and added, "You would be welcome to come too, of course." Before Hawke had closed the big rift, there had been no 'of course' about it, so that was... something.

"Cullen mentioned something about that. Looking for a horse supplier and a meeting with a Chantry mother – Giselle, was it?" Hawke glanced over at Varric. "I hadn't got around to mentioning that yet, but I was planning to. You were right about the horses."

Varric snorted with amusement. "Figures. Some of the folk here seem obsessed with the subject."

"Mother Giselle could be a useful ally," Cassandra said. "I'm informed that we need allies quite urgently. I am not known for my tact and–"

Varric snorted again, but bit his lip against the words that wanted to come out.

Cassandra gave him a sour look, making an exasperated noise before continuing, turning back to Hawke. "You have a reputation for making friends, however, and I could do with your help. There are also rifts in that area, Scout Harding informs me. The demons are making a bad situation worse amongst the warring mages and templars."

"That's a demon's job, isn't it? To make everything worse?" Hawke drained the rest of the ale in his tankard and slammed it down. "All right, we're in," he said, automatically including Varric. "I might even be able to scare up a few extra allies while we're there. When do we leave?"

"First thing tomorrow if you're willing, and thank you. Our armourer would like to see you as soon as you can, to see if your new robes fit, and I... I thought you might appreciate having this back." She thrust the sacking covered object at Hawke.

Hawke took it and unwrapped it slowly, his breath leaving him in somewhere between a gasp and a sigh when he saw what it was. "I thought this had been lost or destroyed," he said, his hand tightening around the Key as if he was afraid someone was going to try and take it away again.

"It fell with you. I think Solas would like to talk to you about it when you have time. He found it... interesting."

"That's one way of describing it," Varric put in. "He mentioned the ancient elves at least three times while discussing it. That's excessive levels of enthusiasm for Solas."

Hawke looked over at him. "What did you tell him about it?" he asked, pulling the staff closer to him. He'd always been weirdly possessive of it since the moment he got it, but Varric liked to put that down to the connection with his father and not any of the creepier, blood-related reasons that he tried not to think about.

He shook his head, but before he could answer, Cassandra said bluntly, "He told us nothing, which is standard for Varric when you're the topic at hand. At least he didn't lie this time."

"Seeker," Varric said with a sigh. "I've already told you; I'm not gonna apologise for protecting my friend from you." He wouldn't wish Cassandra's aggressive attention on his worst enemy. Well, maybe his worst one, but not the ones that had merely annoyed him.

"There's a conversation we need to have sooner than later," Hawke put in before she could respond. "But for now I will point out that getting angry at my friend for not telling the truth to their kidnapper and torturer doesn't make it any easier for me to work with you. I want to like you, Seeker, but you're making it damned difficult."

Cassandra stepped back, looking aghast. "Torturer? I never! I wouldn't!"

"Depends how you define the word, I guess," Varric said, appreciating Hawke's support more than he could say. "Try 'bullying' if it helps you rest easier."

"I am – was – the Divine's Right Hand. I was acting on her orders. Questioning you was my duty, but you were never harmed, and you know it!" Cassandra turned to Hawke, saying earnestly, "We needed someone to lead this Inquisition. First Leliana and I looked for the Hero of Ferelden, but she had vanished. Then we looked for you, Hawke, but you were gone too. We thought it all connected, but no. You were just being kept from us, when we needed you most."

Hawke didn't back down an inch. "Did any of you even stop to think that through? You really thought the way to get me on board was to abuse my best friend?"

"Never mind that," Varric put in, "Did you ever consider actually telling me _why_ you wanted Hawke? Why'd you make me go through the whole damn history of Hawke's time in Kirkwall if you already knew you wanted him?"

"I, uh... Oh." Cassandra looked crestfallen. She sat down with a thump into the spare chair at their table, staring at Varric. "If I'd just explained what was at stake, if I'd made you understand... but I didn't, did I? I didn't explain why we needed him. Had Hawke been with us from the start, the Conclave might never have... Is what happened... was it my fault?"

She looked at Varric beseechingly, her eyes somehow bigger, more rounder than usual. Andraste's ass, what was he meant to do with this guilt he was now feeling?

"I _was_ at the Conclave, Seeker," Hawke pointed out softly. "I was right there when the Chantry exploded back in Kirkwall too. I'm obviously not very good at preventing explosions. Varric builds me up too much. I've always done what I can to help, but I've failed at least as often as I've succeeded."

"I..." She sighed, lowering her head. "You have a point, but the fact remains. I need to be more careful in my approach to things." She looked up again, her jaw and neck muscles notably tense. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Varric. Not for questioning you, that I had to do, but for not telling you _why_ ; that is... unforgivable. And we will never truly know if it could have made a difference, if Most Holy... " She swallowed.

Varric found himself reaching out to touch her hand with a slight sense of disbelief. "Seeker, come on now, stop it. You said yourself, we can't know, so move on. We've got Chantry mothers to impress, horses to solicit, rifts to close, and we're all on the same side now."

Hawke stood up. "I'm going to go get us another round," he said. He looked at the seeker. "Would you join us, Cassandra?"

"I... Thank you, Hawke. I would."

***

 _Hawke watched Carver leave, feeling the fond exasperation that interacting with his brother usually engendered. Things were always going to be prickly between them to say the least, but they_ were _brothers, and that was always going to be the most important thing._

_Killing ancient darkspawn, who were also possibly ancient magisters, that their father had been forced to use his blood to lock away could not in any way be called a typical family outing, but somehow it had worked for them. They'd had the most honest and heartfelt conversation they'd had in years when they made it back to Kirkwall. So much so that Hawke found himself wishing Carver could stay longer and didn't have to rush back to the Wardens, even though he knew they would be back to sniping at each other within the week if Carver did. Family – it drove you crazy when you had it and broke your heart when you lost it._

_Leaving Bodahn to make sure everything was locked up, Hawke headed up to his bedroom, wondering if Anders was still awake._

_Not only was he still awake, but he was sitting cross-legged on top of the bed surrounded by sheets of parchment. "Oh, I thought you'd be longer, love," he said with a smile. There was blue ink in the corner of his mouth, smeared out onto his cheek. "Let me just gather this all up and make room."_

_Hawke leant against the door jamb and grinned as he watched Anders do so. "More work on the manifesto?" he asked, actually happy to see it. Anders had been so quiet and withdrawn since coming back from the Warden prison. Understandably so, considering it had arguably been more of an ordeal for him than it had been even for Hawke and Carver. Hawke was just relieved to see him doing something normal. Well, normal for Anders anyway._

_"I had some thoughts on the way home. Wanted to get them written down while I remembered them." He slipped off the bed to put his gathered sheets on the table. "Brother all waved goodbye?" he asked, approaching Hawke with a familiar look in his eye._

_"Yup." He pushed away from the doorway and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Anders' waist when he got close enough. "He said he wanted to be well away before he heard something he couldn't unhear," he added with a smirk._

_"That sounds promising." Anders kissed Hawke softly. "It's good to be home," he said as their lips parted. "Well, your home. I'm not sure I could ever say it was good to be back in Darktown."_

_"This is your home too," Hawke told him, reaching up to undo Anders' ponytail so he could run his fingers through his hair. "I'll keep telling you that until it actually sinks in."_

_"I don't deserve such a home, don't deserve you, love." Anders rested his head on Hawke's shoulder. "Truly, I don't know why you tolerate me. If it's not one thing it's another."_

_"I get us into as many messes as you do," Hawke pointed out, sliding his hand from Anders' hair down to the back of his neck, massaging the always tense muscles there. "More, probably if we actually took the time to count. I'm the one who keeps dragging you into the Deep Roads, whether I plan to or not. Maybe I should be asking how you tolerate me."_

_"Easily, eagerly, blissfully, that's how." Anders chuckled softly, pressing himself closer. "You're very easy to love."_

_"Lucky me." Hawke started gently guiding them back towards the bed._

_Anders went willingly enough, but tensed a little before Hawke could lay him down. "Will you let me apologise at least once more? For what happened in the prison?"_

_"The ten times you already have are more than enough," Hawke told him, feeling a twinge of guilt just as he had every other time Anders had apologised for basically being driven mad. "I feel like I should be apologising to you for taking you in there and putting you through that."_

_"You couldn't have known. No one knew what was down there, and Maker knows, there were enough nasty surprises for you without me hearing magister darkspawn in my head and losing it." Anders moved his hands up to cup Hawke's face. "I'm sorry, love."_

_Hawke covered Anders' hands with his own. "It's all right," he said, but as he searched Anders' face he felt a vague sense of unease crawl up his spine. "Isn't it?"_

_Anders moved his hands to his own head, raking his hair as he separated himself from Hawke. "He took me over so easily. You'd think Justice would have blocked him somehow. Just how much room is there in my head? Is there even room for me any more?" He turned and stared at Hawke, his hair now looking wild and weirdly shaped._

_"Anders," Hawke began, taking a step towards him, but uncertain what he should do or say to help. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't protect Anders from Justice, and he had done a piss poor job of protecting him in the Warden prison as well. At least that part was done and dusted, he reminded himself. "Corypheus is dead," he said, reminding Anders as well. "He can't get to you any more."_

_"Dead," Anders repeated blankly. "Yes, of course." He seemed to twitch a few times then said in an odd voice, "I'm sorry, Hawke. It seems that l need more time to consider what happened. I'll see you soon no doubt." With that he just turned and strode from the room, pages of his manifesto lifted by the breeze as he passed. They fluttered to the floor._

_Hawke found himself staring at them for several long seconds before he shook himself and went after Anders. Something was wrong, and he had to fix it._

_But when he barrelled through the door he didn't find himself in the upstairs hallway like he should have, but in a large, dank room, obviously underground. A collection of finely crafted furniture was incongruously set up in the corner, clustered around a painting on the wall. A painting of a woman that looked almost exactly like his mother._

_When he realised where he was, he stumbled backwards in horror, only to realise the door to his bedroom was no longer behind him; he couldn't go back even if he wanted to. The only path open was forward, and Hawke knew with a sudden, bone deep certainty that it wasn't going to be his mother he found at the end of it._

_Stomach churning with fear and dread, Hawke pulled his staff from its resting place against his back and started running, but the faster he tried to move, the slower he seemed to. The corridor seemed to grow longer with every step he took. All Hawke could do was grit his teeth and keep going, his own heartbeat pounding loudly in his ears, each beat sounding like words in his head._

_Too late. Too late. Too late._

_Finally, after what seemed like years, he rounded a corner and found himself in Quentin's workspace. The blood mage was bent over a sheet-covered table, bloody up to his elbows, muttering about how this was his greatest achievement by far. Hawke didn't even slow down as he threw a fireball; Quentin disappeared in a pillar of flame, cackling madly the entire time._

_Leaving Hawke alone with the body on the table._

_He stumbled forward, past blood and bones and burning bodies, all of them wearing Warden armour. He nearly tripped over suddenly appearing red lyrium outcroppings because he was unable to take his eyes from that table. In no time at all, he was standing in front of it and reaching to pull the sheet away._

_Anders' face stared back up at him, though it was only his face, skin stretched tight and held in place on someone else's head by jagged hooks of red lyrium. Hawke staggered back, mouth open wide in silent horror and grief._

_"I knew you would come, love," the... Anders thing said, and its voice was deep and menacing. The body, the collection of parts, swung itself up and off the table. "I've been waiting. I need the key, you see. You shouldn't have taken it, but I knew you couldn't keep away."_

_Hawke gripped his staff – the Key – tighter, stumbling backwards as that thing advanced on him, only to find himself backed up against a wall. "No..." he whispered as the thing reached out for him, the word coming out more of a moan than anything else._

_Clammy, leather fingers touched his face. "But yes, love. There's no going back. You started all this, but we'll finish it together. We'll always be together now, hand in hand into the darkness."_

_The thing stunk of corrupted flesh, like possessed corpses or darkspawn. It pressed itself forward, moving in a glide somehow, as if not using its borrowed legs. "I will drown us in blood so that we may rise," it said, and then, to Hawke's utter terror, the thing kissed him._

_Hawke screamed._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke experiences the best the Hinterlands has to offer...

Hawke sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, his own scream still echoing in his ears.

_A dream, just a dream,_ he told himself, running a shaky hand through his sweat damp hair, trying to calm himself down.

"Herald?" A soft voice asked from close by. "I heard a loud cry. A nightmare?"

Hawke looked up to see Solas standing in the doorway to the main room of his cabin. "You could say that," he said with a mirthless laugh. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you."

"Not bothered, merely concerned." Solas leant against the inner door frame. "We haven't really had a chance to talk yet, so you may not know that my magical studies have concentrated on the Fade and hence also dreaming. Perhaps I can help."

"It wasn't that kind of dream, the kind with demons," Hawke said, though the sense of foreboding it still left him with made him wonder. "At least I don't think so."

"All dreams occur in the Fade," Solas replied peaceably. "This one seems to have left you quite shaken. May I ask, have you had others like it?"

He managed another strangled laugh. "Nightmares, yes, but not like that."

"Perhaps its intensity is connected to the mark somehow." Solas walked over to the small table where a jug of water stood. He filled a beaker from it and offered it to Hawke. "Would you like to talk through it with me? I might be able to help, but if not, merely talking about such things can often have a healing effect."

Hawke took the offered water with a nod of thanks, frowning a little when he noticed his hands were still shaking. "How much do you know about my history?" he asked.

"When we were waiting for you to return to awareness the first time, after you'd been identified, I felt it wise to read _The Tale of the Champion_ while I sat with you." He smiled slightly. "Outside of Varric's written word, however, I know next to nothing. I tend not to involve myself with the waking world, I'm afraid, and the events in Kirkwall are too recent for me to wish to dream there."

Hawke looked at Solas with interest, focusing more on what the elf had said about himself instead of the dream he'd had. "The way you talk... are you a somniari?"

"A Dreamer, yes." Solas nodded almost approvingly. "You've heard of us? Not many human mages have."

"I've met one," Hawke said, remembering the young half-elf boy he'd first rescued from slavers and then from demons in the Fade. "Just coming into his powers. Last I heard, he'd found a teacher in Tevinter and was learning how to use them safely."

"I see. I would be interested to know more about him, but perhaps now is not the time."

"Probably not," Hawke admitted with a sigh. He'd rather talk about Feynriel than the dream, but that was more avoidance than anything. "If you've read Varric's book, then you'll understand what I mean when I say I dreamt that what happened to my mother happened to my lover." It had been more than that, somehow worse than that, but that was horrific enough.

"I see," Solas said again with a nod. "Perhaps an unpleasant Fade concoction made from your understandable trauma from that time and a current concern for... Anders, is it? Your mark gives you a powerful connection to the Fade. It may be making your dreams more intense. If it happens again, there are techniques I could teach you that would grant you control over them. No more nightmares."

Hawke clenched his left hand into a fist, then opened it, looking down at his palm and the strange green mark there. "So this is the gift that just keeps on giving? Isn't that just bloody marvellous." He looked up again at Solas, clenching his fist again. "I would appreciate anything you could teach me that might help," he said, grabbing onto the offered help like a drowning man. "If I have many more dreams like that one, I might start thinking seriously about chopping off my hand to stop them."

"That would be... unwise," Solas said with a smile, but he quickly became serious again. "There is another, albeit unlikely, possibility I should mention. With your connection to the Fade as enhanced as I believe it to be right now, it could be that you are picking up on a genuine threat."

Hawke went perfectly still; the feeling of dread that had been slowly fading was suddenly back and making his stomach churn. "What do you mean, 'a genuine threat'?" he asked carefully.

"The Fade echoes events in this world," Solas explained. "In a dream, the only events that it should echo are those in your own mind, your memories or concerns. But some Dreamers can receive hints, images from events beyond their experience. It is not impossible that your mark has given you a similar awareness, but without the Dreamer's ability to translate what you see. It is... unlikely, but I would be remiss were I not to mention the possibility. I'm sorry, Herald."

"So you're saying that Anders could be in genuine danger?" Hawke asked, rather distantly proud of the fact that he was able to keep his words slow and calm in spite of the growing sense of panic he was feeling.

"Unlikely, but yes, possible. I take it he's not close by."

Hawke shook his head. "We both thought it best if he didn't come with me, given the particulars. I left him behind to keep him _safe_ , but if what you're saying is true–"

"A difficult situation." Solas frowned. "Could he be disguised somehow if he came here? The Inquisition has proven to be unusually accepting of apostasy, but Anders' reputation would surely make him a target. Those who start much needed revolutions are rarely appreciated during their own time."

That was basically the same argument that Varric had made, albeit Solas put it much more succinctly and not without sympathy. Hawke had been ready to agree to leave Anders where he was, much though he hadn't wanted to, but that was before. If there was even the slightest chance that something like what he dreamt might befall Anders...

He pushed the blankets aside and got up, crossing the room to grab a cloak to throw on over the worn tunic and pants he'd been sleeping in. "Excuse me, Solas, but I need to go talk to Leliana."

"A wise choice of ear to bend," Solas said behind him as he left. "Good luck, Herald."

The village paths were quiet in a way that Hawke hadn't seen before, and that was what made him realise just how late it was. He almost turned around and went back to his cabin, but there was a light flickering in the tent where Leliana worked so he continued on in the hopes that he wasn't the only one awake at this hour.

You couldn't very well knock on a tent flap, so he slipped inside, prepared to say something to announce his presence. He paused when he spotted the spymaster. She was kneeling in the corner, her entire manner that of one at prayer, and Hawke found himself loathe to interrupt in spite of how urgent his reason for coming here felt.

So he hesitated, listening to her recite part of the Chant.

"Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just. Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's Will is written." She paused ever so slightly and her next words were not part of the Chant. "Is that what You want from us? Blood? To die, so that Your Will is done? Is death Your only blessing?" She turned to look directly at him, and Hawke realised she'd known he was there all along. He should've suspected as much; you don't just simply sneak up unawares on someone of Leliana's talents, even when they were as distraught as she clearly was.

"You speak for Andraste, no? What does the Maker's Prophet have to say about all of this? What's His game?"

Hawke gave a weary sigh that felt like it came from the bottom of his toes. "If it's a game, it's one that I never learnt the rules for."

Leliana shook her head. "You've seen the sky, the temple ruins, the bones lying in the dust. Even if you didn't support the Divine's peace, you wouldn't call this right! Who could?"

"Honestly, it's been a long time since anything's felt right," Hawke said. "I've pretty much given up on making things so. Now I settle for trying to keep them from getting worse. Not that I've had much luck with that lately either."

She didn't reply immediately, her manner calming the longer she looked at him. "And yet you keep trying. I suppose that's all any of us can do no matter how futile it seems."

He had obviously interrupted some very private mourning and if he'd been there for any other reason that Anders' safety, he would take his leave now as gracefully as he could and give her her privacy. With the anxiety still making his stomach churn, however, he felt unable to do that.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you so late," he apologised, "but there's a matter of some urgency that I need your help with."

"Still trying, Champion?" she asked with the bare ghost of a smile, which was a far more positive reaction than he'd been expecting.

"On this particular matter, I'll be trying until my dying breath," he said honestly.

That seemed to sharpen her focus on him. "You have my attention."

Hawke knew he would have to choose his words carefully here, given the history and what he needed to ask for, but when he opened his mouth what came out was simply, "Anders."

She let out a long breath of a sigh. "I had wondered when this particular subject would come up. I assume he still lives? I'm loathe to admit it, but I've had no more luck in tracking him down than I did you."

"We both have extensive experience at keeping away from official notice when we need to," Hawke said. "Granted I've had to practically sit on him sometimes to keep him from doing something stupid – something _else_ stupid – but we've done a pretty good job at staying one step ahead of anyone looking for us."

"And... you are worried that he no longer has anyone to, as you say, sit on him?" Leliana ventured.

"Oh, I left someone to sit on him," Hawke assured her. _And wasn't that quite the mental image?_ he thought rather hysterically, picturing Fenris literally sitting on Anders to keep him still. Shaking it off, he told her seriously, "But that isn't far distant from what I need."

Leliana nodded slowly. "I'm listening."

"I want to bring him here," he said bluntly. "I know that's a lot to ask, given what he... what happened in Kirkwall. There's a reason I came after Varric alone, after all. But things have changed. The world is literally trying to end. I... I need to have him where I can see him. See for myself that he's alive and safe."

He waited for Leliana to outright deny the request, already forming counter arguments, but that wasn't what happened. Instead she cocked her head to the side and just looked at him speculatively for a long moment. "Something's happened, hasn't it, to make you decide this now." It wasn't a question, not really.

"The world's trying to end," Hawke repeated, sticking with the concrete reason. "Isn't that enough?"

"If it was, you would've brought this up as soon as we asked you to join," Leliana countered. "Not waited until the dead of night. Yet here you are, proclaiming the urgency of your request like it's something that's just occurred." Her eyes narrowed. "A nightmare. You dreamed about something bad happening to him."

The Nightingale's reputation for seeing what others missed was well founded it seemed. "Something bad would be something of an understatement," he said with a sigh, suppressing the shudder that came with the memory. "But if it were just bad dreams – even the type that end with me waking up screaming – I'd deal. Not happily maybe, but... it's not like that sort of thing's never happened before."

"This dream is different." Hawke couldn't decide if he found this habit Leliana had of phrasing questions as statements irritating or comforting.

"Maybe," he admitted. He held up his marked palm. "Because of this. Solas said that because this strengthens my tie to the Fade my dreams could be more than dreams. That they could be–"

"A warning?"

Hawke nodded. "It could be just a nightmare, but it _did_ feel different, more real somehow. I... can't take the chance of ignoring it when it might be more than just a dream."

The way Leliana continued to watch him, study him, made Hawke want to squirm like he had as a young boy when trying to hide something he'd done from his mother's seemingly all-knowing gaze. "And if I said no?" she asked. "That allowing him to come here would cause too much unrest?"

"Then I'd have to leave and go to him," Hawke replied, the words coming before he'd consciously decided that was his answer. He'd come back – he wasn't about to let the world burn when he could do something to prevent it – but one way or another he needed to see for himself that Anders was safe, or else he was going to quickly become useless for anything.

"You care for him that much?" Leliana asked, still watching him, but Hawke thought he saw a softening in her gaze.

He gave a half shrug and spread his hands. "He's my heart," he said simply. "If I lost him, if he died, I'm not sure I could keep breathing. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't want to. I've lost far too many people I've loved. Losing him would break me."

Leliana blew her breath out in a long sigh. "There is no such thing as a guarantee of absolute safety," she warned. "If he comes here, the only promise I can give you is that I will do my best to keep him safe."

That wasn't a no. In fact it sounded very much like permission. "The best of Sister Nightingale, Left Hand of the Divine and Spymaster of the Inquisition? I'll take it... if that's what's being offered?"

She nodded slowly. "I suppose it is."

Hawke felt some of the incipient panic of the dream fade. "Thank you," he said, the words never more heartfelt. "I'll send them word right away."

"I can lend you a messenger bird if you need one," Leliana offered, then paused. "I may not be able to approve of the extremes he went to, but his cause – <em>your</em> cause – that is something different. I've known mages, called them my friends. Some of them were better persons than I, yet I am free and they were not. It's not right. If I was treated like some mages have been treated, I might have done something drastic to try and change things too."

That... was a surprising attitude from someone who had been so intimately attached to the chantry. So surprising that Hawke wondered for a moment if he was being played, but there was an earnestness in Leliana's manner that made him believe her.

"I... that's not an attitude I've encountered very much, at least from non-mages."

"Hopefully, that will change," Leliana told him. "Go, send word to your Anders. I'll deal with making sure that Haven is as safe for him as I can make it."

"Thank you," he said again, giving her a smile before heading off to do just that, feeling infinitely better.

He wouldn't feel completely relieved until Anders was standing in front of him, but knowing that he had an another ally in looking out for Anders' safety went a long way to easing at least some of his fears.

***

It was like being back in Kirkwall on that day when everything had changed. Well, Kirkwall with a lot of added hills, herd animals, mud and greenery anyway, which as far as Varric was concerned only made it all the more revolting.

The Ferelden Hinterlands had been scarred by the Mage-Templar war – corpses everywhere, frozen trees, burning houses, that stink of blood, steel and magic. And neither side seemed to give a damn who they attacked; anyone who wasn't them was the enemy, apparently. Well, this group of mages had soon learnt the error of that particular way.

"Feeling homesick, Hawke?" Varric asked, stepping around the body of a mercenary who apparently had been working for the mages. He twisted and removed one of Bianca's bolts from the man's shoulder.

Hawke slung the Key back into place in the socket clasps on his back of his armour, and he knelt to check one of the bodies for anything dangerous or useful, grimacing a little at the blood. "Needs more arguing about which side is more wrong, interspersed with inappropriate flirting. Then it would feel like home."

"Do you mean to say all that... nuanced banter in your book actually happened?" Cassandra asked, sounding ever so slightly horrified by the idea. "I had thought you made that up to make the fighting more interesting for noncombatant readers."

"Oh, it happened, Seeker," Varric said with a chortle. "Probably more than I wrote."

"Couldn't even use the threat of gagging because about half of them took that as encouragement and just got worse," Hawke offered cheerfully. "Or better, considering what happened when we got home for the night."

Cassandra made a noise of disgust deep in her throat. "I hope, Champion, you are not expecting the same to happen here."

Varric grinned evilly. "You mean to say, Seeker, that all that aggressive attention you've been showing me _wasn't_ flirting?"

"I..? What? No! Of course it wasn't... Oh." She seemed to click finally that Varric was in jest and gave him a filthy look.

"Ah, be still my heart, it's the look of love," Varric said, winking at her.

Solas laughed.

" _Now_ I'm feeling homesick," Hawke quipped.

Varric took a moment to surreptitiously study Hawke as they made their way down a steep hillside to what he hoped was the Crossroads at last – a small trading settlement, apparently, built around the meeting of two important roads. Or what passed for roads out here.

Hawke seemed his old self mostly, but there was just something not right. Maybe it was the rings around his eyes, darker than normal, or the way he kept clenching his left hand into a fist, or just the way he looked so pensive when he thought no one was looking. Something was up, and yeah, it could just be this whole freaky situation with the Breach and being named Herald, but Varric couldn't help thinking there was something beyond even those mental heavy weights.

"More fighting ahead," Solas warned.

"Those are Inquisition forces!" Cassandra started to run towards them.

The fighting was brief but vicious once they joined it. Both renegade mages and renegade templars were involved, attacking with seemingly no other goal than to kill everyone not them. At different times Varric heard Cassandra try to reason with the templars, and Solas trying the same with the mages, but like the groups they'd met before, both sides were beyond listening. Hawke looked no more surprised at that than Varric felt. They'd both learned their lessons in Kirkwall. Sometimes the only thing you could do to make the fighting stop was to fight back. And they were very, very good at fighting back.

After the last templar fell under a combination of ice and crossbow bolts, there was a moment of almost eerie silence before the murmurings began. Varric couldn't catch every word that was bantered about, but he caught enough. Inquisition forces, refugees, all of them seemed to be talking about Hawke. Just like old times indeed.

What appeared to be the leader of the local Inquisition forces stepped up and had a brief conversation with both Hawke and Cassandra. Hawke nodded gravely to the man when he finished before rejoining Varric and Solas. "Mother Giselle is apparently waiting for us," he said. "She's helping tend the wounded."

As they approached the area where the maimed and bloody had been gathered, the woman in red Chantry robes was easy to spot. She appeared to be trying to soothe a man – hardly more than a boy in fact – in Inquisition uniform. He was half lying on one of the pallets, but seemed agitated about something. Drawing closer, it became obvious what that something was.

A mage stood behind the mother, his arms crossed, and the lad was saying, "Don't let him touch me, mother. His magic is-"

"Turned to noble purposes," the chantry mother interrupted gently in an Orlesian accent. "No more evil than your blade. Allow him to ease your suffering."

Varric saw the surprise that flickered across Hawke's face at her words. "That's a very progressive position," Hawke said to her. "Some would even call it blasphemous."

She stepped back from the wounded lad as the healer moved forward, and turned to face Hawke. "Andraste led a rebellion against the Tevinter Imperium, whose magisters controlled most of the world at the time. Even then, she never called for all mages to be put to death. She believed in peaceful coexistence."

"Too bad that peaceful coexistence turned into centuries of confinement and subjugation," Hawke said, more of a bite to his words than usual. It was a reminder that, while never as militant as Blondie in his methods, Hawke had always shared his opinions on how the Chantry treated mages.

"The Circles of Magi predate the Chantry," the mother said, "but it is true that they had become little more than prisons. What we failed to consider in the Nevarran Accord, however well-meaning, was that when one group of people are given absolute control over another group, abuse is sadly inevitable." She gave Hawke a look that seemed more than a little sympathetic.

"As inevitable as the abused finally deciding they can't take any more and fighting back." Hawke tilted his head when he looked at her, and Varric could tell he was still trying to figure out how to categorize her: possible friend, ally, or necessary evil. "There was always going to be a revolution. I honestly don't know any more if there was any way it could have started without violence."

"Andraste herself must surely have found herself asking the same questions," she said with a small smile. "You are Hawke, are you not? The one they are calling the Herald of Andraste."

"Among other things," Hawke said dryly, but then gave her a genuine smile. "Though this may be the first time someone has used it when I haven't felt like cringing."

"It is a heavy title to live up to, I'm sure," Mother Giselle said, for it was surely her. "I wanted to speak to you. I know of the Chantry's denouncement, and I'm familiar with those behind it. Some eye the Divine's chair, now it's empty, but many are simply in shock and reacting in fear. You need to show them you are no demon."

"That may be easier said than done, your reverence," Hawke said, and that was how Varric knew for sure he was impressed by her. Hawke rarely if ever used proper forms of address even when he respected a person; for him to do so now was obviously a deliberate choice. "I'm pretty sure I could literally rescue a litter of kittens in front of them, and they would still find reason to call me abomination or worse."

She nodded seriously. "Let me put it this way. You don't need to convince them all; just give them reason to _doubt_. Their certainty is their power against you. Take that from them, and you gain time to do what you need."

"Baffle them with bullshit until they start second guessing everything they're doing? That I could probably do." Hawke glanced at Varric, his mouth turned up in the ghost of a smirk. "I might have a little bit of practice at that."

"Just a little," Varric replied with a grin.

"Hope is what we need now. The people will listen to your rallying call if you sound it, all the more if you continue to get the results you have so far." Mother Giselle turned to look at the injured man, now sleeping peacefully. "I will go to Haven and let Sister Leliana know the names of those in the Chantry who would be amenable to talking with you. It is not much, but I will do whatever I can to restore peace both to the Chantry and to this land."

"Thank you," Hawke told her and watched bemusedly as she moved away, checking on other wounded on her way to one of the small huts nearby. "A chantry mother who actually seems to care more about helping people than in condemning anyone who doesn't agree with them. I wasn't sure such a thing actually existed."

"I too," Solas said thoughtfully, "found her different from what I had expected. She could be a good ally, Herald."

Cassandra said nothing, but she seemed to be thinking so hard Varric was surprised he couldn't hear her thoughts. Hawke glanced over at her. "You look like you're about to start pouring smoke out of your ears," he told her.

"I look... angry?" she said, obviously unsure she'd understood the colloquialism correctly. "I'm not. Not really. Just... frustrated. People shouldn't be surprised by Mother Giselle; she should be what they expect! Not... Chancellor Roderick and his ilk."

"Seeker," Hawke said, all of his usual banter and humour falling away, "until recently, the best I could say about the chantry people that I'd personally interacted with was that they weren't actively trying to make the lot of mages and non-humans worse, but they certainly weren't very open to making them better either. They weren't the ones hurting, so maintaining the status quo was better than the risks of trying to ease the suffering and right the wrongs of the system they endorsed. And that was the good ones. Of the bad ones, the less said the better."

"I... know." She sighed deeply. "Most Holy knew. That is why she gave Leliana and I her writ. Above and beyond our current crisis with the Breach, the Inquisition is meant to... to find a better way."

Hawke sighed wearily. "Better late than never, I suppose." He shook himself. "Come on. Let's see if we can find out what we can do to help the refugees here. Aside from dealing with the people trying to kill them, I mean, because that's an obvious given."

They found and talked to various people at the Crossroads, and Varric was reminded of when he'd first met Hawke, when the man had been scrambling to establish himself and his family as something more than refugees themselves. Of course he was going to go out of his way to help these refugees now. They spent the rest of the day doing such mundane things as hunting for them or finding caches of blankets and other supplies to keep them warm. Simple things that would make a huge difference to the people they were helping.

The work seemed to settle Hawke as well. He seemed much less wound up as they made their way back to their camp that evening. He'd closed several rifts too, along with all the do-gooding, so Varric felt justified in asking quietly, "How are you?" as they sat eating their camp rations later that evening.

"Worried I'm going to keel over in a dead faint for three days again?" Hawke asked around a mouthful of stew.

"You could say that," Varric replied. "Didn't want it to become a habit, getting out of all the chores that way."

"I'm fine, Varric," Hawke said with a smile. "Little tired maybe, but today has been... surprisingly good."

"We actually made a difference." Varric nodded. "Life's a lot easier when the bad guys are obvious. Nice of the warring parties to always attack first, I thought. Takes all the ethical worrying out of the equation."

"For once. Though I try to keep that sort of worrying to a minimum. You let yourself get caught up in worrying over ethics while people are actively trying to kill you, and the next you know you've got an arrow in the arse and a lover who won't stop lecturing you about keeping your mind on what you're doing."

"So speaks the voice of experience," Varric said with a laugh. "Talking of lecturing lovers, have you written to Blondie and the elf?"

Hawke went completely still for a moment, staring into the fire and biting his lip. Just as Varric was opening his mouth to say something, Hawke set his bowl aside and stood up. "Let's go for a walk."

Varric stared for a few moments then hauled himself to his feet. Taking Bianca up from the ground, he said, "Okay, a walk it is."

They headed away from the camp, Hawke not slowing down until it was a distant light between the trees around them. He finally stopped, looked behind him as if judging the distance, then sighed and sat down on a conveniently placed rock. "You're probably going to be pissed," was his opening line. "I asked Leliana to arrange safe passage for them to Haven."

Varric opened his mouth, shut it again, shook his head and looked aside. "And she agreed?"

Hawke shrugged, staring down at his hands. "I didn't really give her much choice. Said if she didn't I was going to leave." He paused. "Though to be fair to her, I think she would've agreed anyway."

"I'm not pissed, just... How are we going to keep them safe?" he asked, ‘them' of course really meaning just one of them.

"However I have to," Hawke said stubbornly. "That's why I have to do this. He's not safe out there."

There was no point in arguing with Hawke when he got like this; Varric knew that, but had he really thought this through? "And what if he– What if Justice takes against the Inquisition?"

"He won't."

"How can you know that?" Varric stared at Hawke in disbelief. "You can't claim to know what Justice will do, none of us sodding can. Otherwise we would have been able to stop–" He stopped himself. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Hawke. I just... don't want to see history repeat itself."

Hawke didn't answer right away, though Varric could see his jaw tensing as obviously wrestled with his emotions. "I've been having dreams," he finally said. "Nightmares. About Anders. Losing him. The last one I had, Quentin did to him what he did to my mother."

Varric hissed. "Maker's bloody balls, that's awful!" Well, that explained the way Hawke had woken the other day and, well, a whole lot really. "You should have said."

"It's not exactly something that's easy to slip into casual conversation, you know," Hawke said, sounding slightly more like himself. "'Mind that you don't trip over that root, and by the way did I mention I woke up screaming because I dreamt Anders had been ripped apart and parts of him sewn onto a monster?'"

Varric winced. "Okay, I get it. I get why you need him here, where you can see him. But we can't just hope nothing will happen once he's here. We need to be... prepared."

"You're talking about him like he's an enemy." Hawke turned a sad gaze on him. "You really do hate him now, don't you? Not that I blame you with everything that you lost because of what happened." There was the barest hint of a smile though his gaze remained sad. "I'm surprised you don't hate me as well for my part in all of it."

"I don't hate Blondie," Varric said, aghast. "How can you think that?"

"I don't mean like Meredith levels of hate," Hawke said. "I don't think that. More like... brotherly hate."

"Huh." Varric scrubbed his face with his hands. "Well, I certainly trust him about as much as I trust Bartrand." No, that was unfair. "It's Justice, Hawke. Or what Justice does to him, or makes him do, or whatever. I mean, that guy we met healing the penniless in Darktown? That's a good guy. That's someone who wouldn't kill a hundred people just to make a point." He really should stop talking; he was only making things worse.

"That guy is still there. Anders is still there. Much more so in the last year than ever." Hawke got up and started pacing the small clearing they were in. "Do I hate what Justice made him in Kirkwall? Varric, you have no idea. But I can't start treating him like that's all that he is now."

Varric nodded, then sighed. "When I said we need to be prepared, I meant as much for things other people might want do to him as the other way around. A little bit of advance strategy to keep everyone happy." If that was even possible.

"Having Leliana involved is, surprisingly, making me a lot less nervous about all that. She promised me she'd keep him safe when I can't, and I believe her." Hawke stopped his agitated pacing and turned to look at Varric. "Would you rather I keep him away from you?"

Varric shook his head. "No, of course not." He paused for a few moments, then added, "She doesn't even want him disguised somehow?"

Some of the tension had seemed to go out of Hawke at Varric's denial. "We... didn't get into specifics when we talked. I wasn't exactly in the best head space at the time," he admitted, "but trying to keep him in disguise might be riskier in the long run. I doubt we could keep it up indefinitely and any... negative reactions would be worse if he was then found out."

"Good point," Varric said, and he sounded grim to his own ears, so he sighed and added in as upbeat a tone as he could manage, "So we'll be having a spirit healer along again. Seems to be a shortage of them around here, and these potions are all very well, but the taste kind of lingers. You know, the taste that tastes like nug vomit smells."

"I'm still not entirely convinced that nug vomit isn't one of the ingredients," Hawke joked, seeming to relax more at Varric's efforts. It made him realize that maybe Hawke had been worrying more about Varric's reaction to all this specifically than the more general danger Blondie was maybe going to be in.

"Ugh." He pulled a deliberately comical face. "I need to get hit less."

"We've been telling you that for years," Hawke pointed out. "You'd think someone as short as you would be a smaller target."

"What can I say? Bianca just catches the eye. She can't help being irresistible." Varric patted his crossbow affectionately. "You know," he went on, his smile dropping, "as we're out here doing the whole serious talk thing, we probably should address the red lyrium issue."

They'd seen more of it today, in a cave where mages had left a cache of useful supplies. It wasn't just at the site of the Conclave explosion any more. Hawke made a face, but didn't shy away from the topic. "I'd been clinging to the hope that the stuff at the temple was just a horrible coincidence, but I guess that was too much to hope for."

Varric paced up and down. "What's it doing here, Hawke? If it was here all along, how come no one had ever seen it before we found that old thaig?"

"And if it wasn't here all along how did it get here now?" Hawke shook his head, his turn to stand still and seemingly calm while Varric paced. "Damned if I know, but I promise you, Varric, we're going to find out."

"Anyone could find it, touch it, maybe break some off to make a nice desk ornament, polish some up for a damned engagement ring... Maker's balls, we could end up with armies of merediths! We have to find it all and destroy it. It's evil."

"We will," Hawke promised. "Every damn piece that exists. We'll track it down and destroy it."

They'd done so to the cache they'd found, Hawke freezing it solid and then Cassandra hitting it until it shattered into tiny pieces that Hawke then heated until they'd evaporated into nothingness like so many ice shards.

Varric nodded, grateful that he didn't have to explain himself. Hawke knew how shaken he was by the red lyrium, and he knew why. "We should probably go back to camp before they start worrying we've been eaten alive by these mosquitoes."

"These aren't so bad," Hawke said, falling into step beside him, one hand coming to rest companionably on Varric's shoulder. "You should see them at the height of mid-summer. I grew up not far from here. There used to be wild tales of them carrying off small pets or children."

"Okay," Varric said slowly. "Out of Ferelden before mid-summer. Now we have a schedule. Good to know."

"It's not all bad, y'know. You should see the size of the fish you can catch using them as bait."

"Yeah, yeah. And they're caught by giants wielding tree trunks for rods. Pick on the ignorant city dwarf, why don't you." Varric poked Hawke in the side with Bianca's butt.

Hawke grinned. "Tell the truth, I had you going for a minute there."

"Thirty seconds, tops," Varric said and laughed.

***

Now that the most immediate needs of the refugees had been taken care of, they were able to turn their attention to other tasks. They debated it over breakfast around the campfire the next morning. Hawke remained silent, listening as they threw ideas back and forth for a while, though he'd already made up his mind about his next move.

He swallowed the last bite of his breakfast and announced in a voice loud enough to carry over the ongoing debate, "We're going to Redcliffe."

"To speak to the rebel mages?" Solas asked. They'd been told yesterday that Redcliffe was where many were holed up. "Or simply to kill more of them?"

Hawke couldn't stop himself from bristling at that. "I've never attacked a mage that didn't attack me or an innocent first," he told the elf. "Or do you think everyone would've been better served if we'd just stepped aside and let the mages we dealt with yesterday continue to terrorize and kill the local population?"

"The mages we met yesterday did not seem interested in talking," Cassandra said. "The templars likewise. Why would those given sanctuary at Redcliffe be different?"

There were many responses that jumped to Hawke's mind, but most of them were rude and, he admitted, unfair. With everything that had happened, Cassandra had cause to think the mages would not want to engage.

"The Redcliffe mages may be rebels, but they're not renegades like the ones we've been fighting," Hawke said. "They've shown they're willing to negotiate in the past. Granted being the Inquisition probably isn't something that will open doors for us there, but we have an ace in the hole."

"That we do," Varric said, nodding firmly. "That we do."

"What...?" Cassandra shared a confused look between Varric and Hawke. "An ace?"

Hawke gave a her a wolfish grin. "Me. I usually leave the bragging to my biographer–" Here he nodded at Varric who returned the gesture with a mocking bow, "–but all those things you templar types have been hunting me down for? Actually earns me respect amongst the mages."

Solas nodded. "We need to make sure they know who you are before we get there. Perhaps Scout Harding could arrange that?"

Given that Harding was from the area, that was probably the best bet. "I'll speak to her before we get going." He glanced back and forth between Solas and Cassandra. "Any other objections?"

Solas just smiled his small smile. Cassandra looked as if she'd rather like to have an objection or two, but couldn't think of any. In the end, she shrugged and said, "I'm not a templar. Seekers are... different. I imagine the distinction may be lost on rebel mages, however."

"Just keep the threats of death or tranquillity to a minimum and don't stab anyone in the book, and I'll protect you," Hawke told her with a grin. In truth, Cassandra had shown that she did have a modicum of good sense in spite of the way she had treated Varric, so Hawke wasn't too worried about her doing something stupid.

Well, stupider than things other companions of his had done. Then again, that was a pretty low bar to clear.

It was a lovely day. Unfortunately that just meant the warring sides were out in force. Again. They made slow progress north, stopping first to take out a vicious templar camp and then later on a cave full of mages that might as well have spoken a different language for all the notice they took of Hawke's attempts to talk.

Not to mention all the rift-related fun that interrupted their journey regularly.

"I hope Harding's messages made it okay," Varric said as they walked up the road meant to lead them straight to Redcliffe's gates.

"I have complete faith in her," Hawke said, projecting utter confidence into his voice. The look Varric gave him told him he wasn't fooled, however. "And if for some reason, her messages haven't make it through," he continued without missing a beat, "then you and I will just have to talk our way in. What could be simpler?" He shook out his left hand as the mark began to twitch again.

"Another rift ahead," Varric called out, clearly having seen Hawke's movement.

Sure enough, as they rounded a corner, there is was, glowing evilly in front of what he recognised as Redcliffe's gates. Demons milled around beneath it in what was becoming a very familiar pattern.

They had done this often enough by now that that they moved as one to deal with it. Cassandra rushed forward with a loud battlecry to draw the demons' attention, while Varric rained a veritable hail of crossbow bolts down on them to slow their pace. Solas smoothly cast protective magics around them all, and Hawke slammed his staff into the ground, sending an ice spell at a rage demon that was rushing directly for them.

Only to miss his target when the rage demon stepped into an oddly coloured disc of light on the ground and went from a full speed forward dash to moving as if through thick syrup. Hawke blinked. _What in the Void...?_

He didn't have time to really consider whatever it was because other demons were pressing closer, and he had to turn his full attention back to the fight. But he kept one eye on the ground and made sure to avoid stepping onto any of the strange light circles that appeared.

"What in the name of Andraste's pet nug was that?" Varric yelled – from behind Hawke despite having been in front of him a second ago.

"Take care, all," Solas cried. "This rift is different."

"Oh, you think?" Hawke yelled, having to jump and skip awkwardly to avoid more of the glowing discs as they appeared and disappeared. "What was your first clue?"

"Avoid the lighter circles of ground, seeker," Solas shouted, apparently choosing to ignore Hawke's sarcasm.

Hawke wasn't sure Cassandra could even see the strange light as she immediately ran through one, slowing down as if she were moving through deep water. This was getting downright dangerous. Knowing they needed to get that rift closed _now_ , Hawke yelled at Varric to cover him and dove forward, Fade-stepping past the demons and the discs of light until he was close enough to reach the rift with his mark's power.

Even that felt different than the other rifts he'd sealed. The pull of energy from him seemed to be both slower and greedier, and there were a few seconds during which Hawke was certain it wasn't going to work this time. But finally with the usual snap back release of tension, the rift disappeared in the by now familiar shower of sparks and Fade debris.

The light circles went with it, leaving Cassandra shaking her head in confusion. "What... _was_ that?"

"Trouble," Hawke said, then quickly amended, "More trouble." He looked her over, knowing she'd been trapped within one of those discs of light. "You all right?"

"I think so," she said slowly. "Everything around me moved so fast..."

"In fact, it was you who was slowed, Seeker," Solas said. "Whatever that was, it was not a Fade effect."

Hawke opened his mouth to continue the discussion, but noticed that they were starting to draw a crowd. They were close enough to the city gates of Redcliffe that what they'd just done would have been witnessed, and it seemed like the most curious and brave were now coming closer.

"We'll discuss it later," he said brusquely to his companions before turning his most charming manner on their gathering company. "Garrett Hawke," he introduced himself with a bow and a smile. "Would any of you be able to tell me where I could find Grand Enchanter Fiona?" He and Anders had been following everything they could about the mage rebellion, so the name of their leader came easily to mind.

A hooded figure came forward, and Hawke recognised one of the Inquisition scouts. "We spread word you were coming, Herald. We've arranged use of the tavern for negotiations, but there's something you sh-"

"Agents of the Inquisition!" a voice interrupted. An elf in an unusual robe hurried forward. "Magister Alexius is in charge here, but he hasn't yet come down from the castle. He's expected shortly. You can speak with the former Grand Enchanter while you wait if you wish."

"Magister...?" Varric repeated, eyes wide.

Hawke expected he didn't look much different. The last time they had been in the presence of a magister, it had been Danarius trying to reclaim Fenris as his slave. Hawke had taken great satisfaction in watching Fenris kill the bastard. To say that the word ‘magister' had negative connotations for Hawke would have been an understatement. Coming across one in the middle of Ferelden, practically on the doorstep of where Hawke had grown up, was not a pleasant experience.

"Why," he said very carefully, "is there a magister in charge?"

"I'm sure Magister Alexius will be happy to explain when you meet with him," the elf said smoothly. "In the meantime, please do avail yourself of refreshment at the tavern, free of charge, of course." He gave a small nod of his head and stepped aside, indicating with his hands the path ahead into the town.

"Something is very wrong here," Solas murmured as they reluctantly walked further in. "The veil is thin and distorted, altered in a way I've never seen."

"So we have a distorted veil, Fade rifts that are even more messed up than usual, and suddenly magisters," Hawke said. "I'd bet any of you ten royals that those are all related, but none of you are stupid enough to disagree." Why couldn't anything ever just be simple? He sighed, rubbing his temples where he could feel a headache threatening to start. "Let's poke around and see if we can find out anything else before we head to the tavern."

Hawke had been to Redcliffe many times, back when he still lived in Lothering, Redcliffe being the nearest place of any size. On the surface, it didn't look much changed, but it definitely _felt_ different. There was a tension in the air, a sort of hushed expectation, as if everyone was just holding their breath, waiting for a storm to break and the sky to fall in on them.

He realised that was familiar as well, if not something he'd ever felt _here_ before. The last year in Kirkwall had felt like that, and considering how that had turned out, sensing it here was not an encouraging sign.

They poked around, talking to a few mages, eavesdropping on a few townspeople's conversations. While he was sure what they had found out was by far the whole truth, it was enough to make Hawke even more alarmed. Redcliffe had been pressed increasingly hard by templar attacks, until this Magister Alexius had shown up out of the blue and offered protection if Fiona would pledge the mages' to him. Which she had done.

"Why would anyone be that stupid?" Cassandra asked, sounding bewildered as they walked along the dock. "They will practically be slaves!"

"Fear and desperation tend to bring out the stupid in people," Hawke said bluntly. Maker knew at least half the crap that had happened in Kirkwall could be summed up that way, including what Anders had done. "And, not to put too fine a point on it because I completely agree with it being stupid, but it's not like they hadn't already spent most of their lives practically as slaves in the circles."

"Not like they'll be in Tevinter," Varric said in a low tone. "Goodbye frying pan, hello fire."

"Some of them are barely more than children," Solas murmured, and looking ahead Hawke could see he wasn't just talking generally. A frowning lad in mage robes was standing with another mage close to a jetty.

The young man looked familiar somehow to Hawke, and after a moment spent staring at him and trying to erase ten years, he finally figured out why. "Excuse me," he said, approaching him, "but you're Lord Connor, aren't you?"

"I'm not a lord," the young man replied, tensing, obviously expecting trouble. The other mage took one look at them all and walked quickly away.

"But you are Arl Eamon's son," Hawke pressed. He could see the fear in the boy's eyes intensify at his continued questioning, and he tried to smile reassuringly at him. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. I want to talk. I'm Hawke."

" _The_ Hawke?" If anything Connor looked more nervous, but he stayed where he was. "I– I'm so sorry. They wouldn't listen to me."

"Who wouldn't, kid?" Varric asked in a kindly tone.

"I voted against the circle dissolving, but most didn't. At first it seemed all right. They just wanted to oversee themselves. I don't know why, but King Alistair sent them – us – here, of all places, and then the magister came, and..." Connor winced and said the rest in hurry. "It's wrong what they do in Tevinter!"

Hawke had been in Kirkwall by the time it had happened, but he knew Connor's story, about how the boy's mother had tried to hide his magic, and how he'd been possessed by a demon when he'd sought to help his ill father, and the death and destruction that had caused the village. He and his family had been saved by the Hero of Ferelden, but that kind of thing was always going to leave scars.

Talking to him, those were obvious to see, but the fact that the young man was standing here at all bespoke of a strong spirit. He had the strength to survive, Hawke thought, if he was given a fair chance to do so. It made him want to make sure Connor got that chance.

"Connor," he said, making the boy look up and meet his gaze. "I promise you that nobody who doesn't want to will be forced to go with the magister. I'll make sure of that."

"You can do that? He threw my uncle out into the street!"

"Where did Arl Teagan go?" Cassandra asked, obviously dismayed by all she was hearing. "Was he all right?"

"I think they were heading for Denerim, to complain to King Alistair," Connor answered, but then looked back at Hawke. "Are you really going to stop the magister? He has his servants everywhere."

Hawke knew it wasn't the sort of thing he _should_ promise, knew from bitter experience just how easily good intentions and determination could fall short, how quickly a bad situation could become an unsalvageable one, but damn it all, looking at Connor, knowing what was at stake, he couldn't not make it either.

"We are," he told Connor, conveniently leaving out the part where he had only the vaguest of ideas how. "We're not leaving until we do."

Hawke was aware of all three of his companions staring at him, but only Varric spoke. "You should make yourself scarce for a while, kid," he said with an encouraging smile. "Lay low until the bolts stop flying."

"Before you do that," Cassandra put in quickly, "is there anything more you can tell us about what is going on here?"

Connor frowned. "There are the rifts, but you know about them... Some of the magisters servants are using this hut for something." he gestured at the nearest building. "I keep seeing them go in and out, and they always make a big deal about locking it when they leave."

Varric looked at Hawke. "You want?" he asked, gesturing with his head towards the door.

Hawke gave him a wolfish grin. "When have I ever been able to resist a locked door?"

Varric nodded at Connor. "Stay safe, kid."

"There's a place I could hide up the hill," Connor said uncertainly and wandered off, back along the docks, but he didn't seem able to stop himself looking back at them every few steps.

As the others gathered around to obscure him from view, Varric started probing the door lock with his delicate picks. In no time at all, the door was ajar and the picks back in their leather case.

"You made short work of that," Solas said approvingly.

Varric snorted. "Was that a joke, Chuckles?"

"No." Solas sighed. "No, it was not."

"Too bad," Hawke commented. "Because if it was, it wasn't half bad." He stepped inside the small hut, feeling a shiver of _something_ go up his spine, a cross between the sensation of magic and the feeling you got when you were being watched. Once his eyes adjusted and he got a look at the contents, the second part at least made sense.

There were a number of shelves on the wall and arranged on them in neat little rows were human skulls, their empty eye sockets staring down at them. "Well, this isn't disturbing at all," he deadpanned, even as he felt his skin crawling.

"Nasty," Varric hissed.

"The smell..." Cassandra moved her hand to her mouth. "This is recent work. What have they been doing here?"

"There's a note of some kind here," Solas said, moving towards the back of the hut. "Ah, a letter rather. It mentions our magister. He... ah." Solas had a strange expression on his face as he held the parchment out towards Hawke. "You should read this, Herald."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Hawke said as he took the parchment from Solas to read.

_Alexius was quite clear in his orders. We must scour the countryside to find more of the shards. Without them, the Venatori cannot claim the treasure our master seeks. For that, we need the oculara. Without them, the shards are nearly impossible to find, even if they are no longer cloaked by whatever magic hid them for all these centuries._

_There must be more Tranquil in the area – the rebels abandoned most of them when they fled their Circles. Remember, the skull will only attune properly if the Tranquil is in close proximity to one of the shards when the demon is forced to possess him. Even then, the blow must be delivered immediately. The oculara produced from Tranquil killed even minutes later failed to illuminate the shards when used._

_I trust you to continue your efforts in this matter. Our master expects success._

Hawke had to read it several times before its truly horrific meaning sank in. When it did, he could practically feel himself pale in response. He looked up at the rows and rows of skulls again, their sightless gaze now seeming to demand his help. "Sweet Maker," he breathed out, the words almost a moan. There were so many of them!

"What is it?" Cassandra asked urgently.

Varric carefully took the letter from Hawke and read it out loud, his voice faltering as the significance of the words hit him too.

"It's... obscene," Solas said darkly and left the hut.

"I had assumed..." Cassandra trailed off, a catch in her voice. She took a ragged breath before continuing. "I should not have assumed. They would just do as they were told. They wouldn't even have put up a fight. I– I should have checked, should have looked for them... "

Hawke bit back the angry accusations he wanted to say to that. Because when all was said and done, he hadn't done any better. He and Anders had been doing what they could to help mages as the Circles fell, but they both hadn't put as much effort as they probably should have done into helping any Tranquil they came across. Tranquillity was so very much tangled up in both of their greatest fears back in Kirkwall that dealing with those that had suffered such a fate was... uncomfortable to say the least. It was easier to try to keep their contact to as little as possible.

He should have known by now that ignoring something only led to even worse things.

He met Cassandra's gaze directly, knowing that his own was probably more than a little crazed at the moment. "We," he began, enunciating each word precisely, "are going to stop this. We are going to find those responsible and pay them the reckoning they deserve. We are going to save every mage and Tranquil we can, and we are going to protect them. If the Inquisition stands for anything, it is going to be this."

Cassandra nodded, and Hawke could almost see her expression become stronger, more determined. "Let us find this Alexius then."

"And while we're at it," Varric muttered, "ask Grand Enchanter Fiona what in the Maker's name she thinks she's doing."

They left the hut far grimmer than they had entered it. After a moment's thought, Varric locked it again. "No need to terrorise casual thieves hoping for a quick pillage with _that_ ," he said with a shrug.

Hawke nodded. "We'll arrange a proper funeral pyre for them when we can," he said. Part of him wanted to send the entire hut up in flames right now, so much so that he could feel the magic gathering at his fingertips in preparation for casting a fireball, but he reined himself in. Like it or not, this wasn't the time.

By unspoken agreement, they seemed to be heading towards the tavern. Something of their mood clearly showed in their demeanour as the interested crowds they'd attracted when they first arrived now gave them leery looks and moved as far back from their path as they could.

The Gull and Lantern, when they entered it, was busy, with many of the customers in mage robes. One, an older elven woman, stepped forward to greet them as they moved into the main room. "Welcome, agents of the Inquisition. What has brought you to Redcliffe?"

"We were in the area, thought we'd drop by, see what was happening," Hawke said breezily before letting more of an edge come into his voice. "If there's anyone who may need our protection. It's Enchanter Fiona, isn't it?"

"I am Fiona, yes, but if you're here for the free mages, you should know we have already pledged ourselves to the service of the Tevinter Imperium."

"So we've been told," Varric said. "More or less. You know, I've been trying to think of a single worse thing that you could've done, and I've got nothing."

"Your people deserve better than being sold into slavery to Tevinter," Solas said. "I know you are frightened, but there had to be a better solution than this."

"There wasn't," Fiona said flatly. "All hope of peace died with Justinia. This... bargain with Tevinter would not have been my first choice, but we _had_ no choice. I needed to save as many of my people as I could, while I still could."

Hawke wanted to rage at her about what they found in the hut, but held his temper by an extreme effort of will. "Did you even try and look for another solution?" he asked bitingly instead. "When exactly did you make this deal? What happened at the Conclave wasn't that long ago."

"That's when it happened," Fiona answered. "When the Conclave was destroyed, the templars first thought was, of course, to come here to obliterate us, ignoring all evidence that we could not have done it and had nothing to gain from it. They came in such numbers... we would all have died or worse, had not Magister Alexius arrived when he did."

Hawke frowned. "It sounds like awfully convenient timing." There was more going on here, obviously, but he wasn't sure what. It was far too insane an idea to think that maybe Tevinter was somehow to blame for the explosion at the Conclave... wasn't it?

Before he could follow that train of thought any further, he was distracted by a commotion at the door of the tavern where several men were entering, all wearing the Tevinter styled robes.

"Welcome, my friends," the oldest looking one said as he approached them. "I apologise for not greeting you earlier."

"Agents of the Inquisition," Fiona said formally, "allow me to introduce Magister Gereon Alexius."

Hawke eyed the man with interest. He wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting, something more like Danarius, he thought, but Alexius looked pleasant enough, with a face bearing the lines of age and dark eyes that held a bright spark of intelligence, but none of the cruel madness that had lit Danarius'.

Alexius was examining him just as closely, and he was the first to speak. "The Southern Mages are under my command. You are the survivor, yes?" he asked, his accent making Hawke think of Fenris. "The one from the Fade? Interesting."

"That's me," Hawke quipped. "Garrett Hawke. Former Champion of Kirkwall, current Herald of Andraste, survivor of the Fade. Apparently it's what I do. Survive the unsurvivable."

"A useful talent," Alexius said, smiling. "Might I make a guess as to why you're here? Containing the Breach is not a feat that many could even attempt. There is no telling how many mages would be needed for such an endeavour. Ambitious, indeed."

"Well, when you're fighting a massive tear in the sky, you can hardly afford to think small," Hawke said. "On a more personal note, I also feel a responsibility towards the Free Mages. If you know anything of my history, I'm sure you understand my need to make sure that no one is being exploited or harmed in any way."

"I can assure you, the southern mages entered into our little agreement with no coercion on my part. It seemed I was the only one who cared enough to offer the help they needed at the time. Come, let's sit. We have much to discuss." Alexius held out a guiding hand, directing Hawke to a table. "Felix, would you send for a scribe, please?" he said to a young man who had entered the tavern with him. "Ah, forgive me, friends. Allow me to introduce my son, Felix."

The young man bowed before heading off on his errand.

Hawke watched him go before turning his attention back to Alexius. "Do you expect me to believe that your presence here is nothing other than a humanitarian gesture? That there is no ulterior motive?"

"If you're asking what the Imperium will gain from taking our southern brethren under our wing, then, for the moment, nothing. The southern mages are a considerable expense, but after they are properly trained, they will join our legion."

Hawke heard a noise from the milling crowd nearby, and searching faces, he saw Fiona looking dismayed. As if taking their eye contact as permission, she stepped forward, confronting Alexius.

"You said not all my people will be military. There are children, those not suited..."

"And one day I'm sure they will all be productive citizens of the Imperium," Alexius told her. "When their debts are paid."

"If they survive that long," Hawke said, memories of everything he'd seen and heard about Tevinter from Fenris mixing with the knowledge of the fate of the Tranquil and making him have to grip the edge of the table tightly to avoid the overwhelming urge to surge across it to strangle Alexius. "I admittedly don't have much experience with magisters, but what I have seen is that those they command tend to have extremely short life spans."

"Typical southerner prej-" Alexius stopped talking, a deep frown on his face as he stared to the side of Hawke. There, Alexius' son Felix was approaching, but something was wrong. He was shambling, half-stumbling...

Hawke was on his feet before he'd formed the conscious thought to do so and caught Felix as his knees finally buckled, and he collapsed into Hawke's arms. A different kind of cold dread brought a flash of memory, and for a brief second, it was Carver that was stumbling forward like a broken puppet and collapsing.

"Felix?" Alexius was on his feet almost as quickly, but Felix was already taking his own weight again, pulling back from Hawke.

"My lord, please forgive me," he said.

"Are you all right?" Alexius asked, his voice gentle and caring, entirely different from how he'd been speaking to Hawke and Fiona.

"I'm fine, Father," the lad replied, but Alexius clearly didn't believe him.

"Come, I'll get your powders." Then Alexius raised his voice again as the pair headed for the door. "Please excuse us, friends. We will have to continue this another time. Fiona, I require your assistance back at the castle."

Hawke stood and watched them go, before he looked down at the scrap of paper that Felix had slipped into his hand under cover of his collapse.

It was a note, written in an elegant and practised hand, short and to the point. "Come to the Chantry," he read aloud. "You are in danger."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke makes a new friend and takes an unexpected trip...

It was just his luck, Dorian thought sourly as he blasted yet another shade back to the Fade, that his choice for a nice out of the way spot for a clandestine meeting would be the very location that the next rift would choose to open and spill demons everywhere.

At least it meant he wasn't bored while he waited, although it did rather up the urgency of a positive response to his missive. If the Champion and his companions decided to ignore his note and not come, Dorian was quickly going to find himself arse deep in demons with no way to stop more from coming through to join the party.

As if to emphasise that point, a couple of shades pushed through right in front of him, and Dorian reacted reflexively, jumping back and spinning his staff to hit one, then the other. He used just enough magic to add a little kick of the spirit to the physical blows, doing his best to conserve his mana since he had no idea how long he would have to wait until help–

The sound of the Chantry door opening drew his attention. Thank the Maker, when he looked he saw just the people he was waiting for.

Two more good whacks from his staff sent the last of the shades currently menacing him back to the Fade, and then he turned to address the Champion and his companions. "Good, you're finally here," he greeted them, hiding the doubts he'd been having over whether they'd show at all. "Now help me close this, will you?"

Gratifyingly, the four incomers rushed straight into the fight. A woman, clearly the knight he'd been told about, bellowed for the demons' attention while two mages and a dwarf with a crossbow sent in barrage after barrage of demon-shredding offence.

It seemed no time at all before one of the mages – the tall, handsome human with a lethal looking staff and the red smear over his nose that just screamed 'I'm deadly and I know it' – held up an arm and released a thick stream of murky green energy towards the rift, which pretty much just snapped shut as a result.

"Fascinating!" Dorian exclaimed, the excitement at seeing a new form of magic at work temporarily overriding all his other concerns. "How does that work exactly?"

The mage with the mark – the Champion, Dorian was assuming – gaped at him, then glanced down at his hand looking nonplussed. "You don't even know, do you?" Dorian realised with delight. "You just wriggle your fingers and boom! Rift closes." It made him want to study it all the more.

"Less finger wriggling, more hand waving and hoping for the best," the man replied with an easy humor that made Dorian find him all the more attractive. "And you are...?"

"Ah, getting ahead of myself again, I see." Introductions before pestering strangers with questions about magical theory, where were his manners? "Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?"

"Somehow," the dwarf said, "when I knew I was coming to Ferelden, I just wasn't expecting to meet so many magisters. Can't think why."

The assumption was just like the one made by every other southerner he'd introduced himself to so far. It was starting to get tiresome. "All right, let's say this once. I'm a mage from Tevinter, but not a member of the Magisterium. I know southerners use the terms interchangeably, but that just makes you sound like barbarians."

"I am Cassandra Pentaghast, and you are not who we were expecting to find here," the knight said in a harsh Nevarran accent. Dorian happened to know the Nevarran king was called Pentaghast. A common name there, perhaps.

"Solas, Varric Tethras, Garrett Hawke," the Champion said, pointing at the elven mage, the dwarf and himself in turn. "We were expecting Felix."

"I'm sure he's on his way," Dorian said, hiding the hint of worry he was feeling. Felix really should have been there before the others. "He was to give you the note, then meet us here after ditching his father."

Hawke was frowning slightly. "Alexius' reaction when Felix pretended to be ill, it wasn't all an act, was it?"

"He's had some lingering sickness for months," Dorian said, deliberately keeping it vague. It wasn't his place to share Felix's condition with strangers. Strangers they were hoping to gain assistance from granted, but strangers nonetheless. "Felix is an only child, and Alexius is being a mother hen, most likely."

"What is your relationship to the magister and his son?" the woman asked.

"Magister Alexius was once my mentor." It still hurt to refer to him that way, in the past tense. Things had gone so wrong so quickly. "So my assistance should be valuable as I'm sure you can imagine."

"You sent the note," Hawke said. It was more statement than question, but Dorian nodded anyway.

"I did. Someone had to warn you, after all."

"Warn us about what?" the dwarf asked bluntly.

"Look," Dorian said. "You must know there's danger. That should be obvious even without the note."

Hawke nodded warily.

Dorian took a deep breath. Now all he had to do was get them to believe in the impossible. "Let's start with Alexius claiming the allegiance of the mage rebels out from under you. As if by magic, yes? Which is exactly right. To reach Redcliffe before the Inquisition, Alexius distorted time itself."

"That's quite a claim to make," Hawke observed.

Doubting, but at least willing to listen. Dorian would take that reaction over outright disbelief. He had evidence, after all, he could present. "The rift you closed here? You saw how it twisted time around itself, sped some things up and slowed others down. Soon, there will be more like it. And they'll appear further and further away from Redcliffe. The magic Alexius is using is wildly unstable, and it is unravelling the world."

"That is fascinating, if true," the elf mage said, "and would explain the distortion in the Veil here. It can't be allowed to continue. If you're no longer his student, how is it you know that this is what's happening?"

"And why are you here when he is?" Cassandra put in.

"I know what I'm talking about. I helped develop this magic," Dorian admitted, feeling the same strange mixture of pride and shame he'd felt when he realized just what it was Alexius had done. "When I was his apprentice, it was pure theory. Alexius could never get it to work. What I don't understand is why he's doing it – ripping time to shreds just to gain a few hundred lackeys?" This was far from the actions of the man Dorian had looked up to for so many years.

"He didn't do it for them." Felix walked out of the shadows near the back of the chantry.

"Took you long enough," Dorian told him, trying to hide how relieved he was to see him. He didn't think Alexius would ever harm Felix no matter the provocation, but then again, he never thought Alexius would join the Venatori either. "Is he getting suspicious?"

Felix shook his head. "No, but I shouldn't have played the illness card. I thought he'd be fussing over me all day." He turned to Hawke. "My father's joined a cult, Tevinter supremacists. They call themselves 'Venatori', and whatever it is he's done for them, he's done it to get to you."

Hawke seemed startled at that. "He rearranged time and indentured the mage rebellion just to get to me? Why? Most people's first move would've been to send an invitation."

"I don't know," Felix said with a frown. "The Venatori are obsessed with you. Perhaps because you survived the Temple of Sacred Ashes, or maybe something to do with Kirkwall?"

"The timing does suggest it's less to do with the latter and more with the former," Dorian pointed out. "As interesting as your past is, it's far more likely to be connected to the fact you can close the rifts. Or perhaps it's just that they see you as a threat?"

Felix turned to Dorian. "If the Venatori are behind those rifts or the breach in the sky, they're even worse than I thought."

"You don't know the half of it," Varric, the dwarf, said darkly, "I suspect."

"And you do?" Felix asked, looking alarmed.

"There's a locked hut down by the docks," Hawke said, and Dorian didn't miss the way that he was watching them both closely, searching for some reaction.

"What's in it?" Felix said, looking if anything more alarmed. Scared perhaps that he was about to hear something about Alexius that he could never then unhear. That was certainly what Dorian was feeling.

"We found," Hawke said, and there was real anger in his voice, "shelves full of human skulls. Recent kills. And a note that referenced orders from Alexius with reminders to kill their Tranquil victims at just the right moment of torture and possession or else the ritual wouldn't work."

"All so they can find some ancient 'shards' for him," Cassandra added. "Presumably a route to more power."

"Kaffas," Felix said weakly and turned away, but still he didn't seem to be able to help himself asking, "Do they feel it? Can Tranquils experience pain?"

The same question had crossed Dorian's equally distressed mind, but he recognized it as the defence mechanism it was, a detail to focus on other than the horrifying revelation about Alexius' actions. "Whether they do or don't, it hardly makes it any better, Felix," he said, forcing them both to face what this meant. "Maker, if Alexius is willing to condone _that_ , what else might he be willing to do? What else is he already doing?"

Varric handed him a piece of parchment. A quick perusal proved it to be the incriminating note Hawke had mentioned, not that Dorian had thought they were making it up. Why would they? He handed it across to Felix anyway.

"As for what else he might be planning," Varric said, "that won't matter if we can stop him in time, but Felix, do you really want to be involved in this?"

"I love my father," Felix replied, turning to face the dwarf, and Dorian could hear the sadness in his voice. "I love my country. But this? Cults? Time magic? Whatever these shards are for which he's having such horrors committed? What he's doing is madness. For his own sake, you have to stop him. I... I'm not sure I can help, but I won't stand in your way either. If you can... if the opportunity arises where you could show mercy..."

Felix stopped talking and looked down. Dorian reached out and squeezed his shoulder, offering what little comfort his presence could offer.

"What about you?" Hawke asked, sharp gaze fixed on Dorian.

He met the stare unflinchingly. "Am I willing to help you mean?" He drew himself up to his full height. "More than willing. Indeed, I insist on it. I refuse to let you deny my aid."

The faintest of smiles touched Hawke's mouth. "A simple yes would have sufficed."

Varric managed a slanted grin. "Welcome to the gang, Sparkler."

While Felix went back to the castle, they began to rapidly discuss possible plans of attack, and it wasn't long before the five of them were making their way out of the village proper.

These new allies of his were all rather fascinating, Dorian thought, as they made their way along a bare trail leading up to an old windmill.

He was starting to get their measure, he felt. His initial impression of Cassandra remained largely unchanged, namely that of a skilled and indomitable warrior, though certain things she said and ways she reacted hinted at a sharper mind and more caring heart than Dorian was used to seeing in warrior types. He didn't think she liked him much, though he thought that was less to do with who he was and more to do with what he represented. Tevinter, magisters, mages – any or all of the above. He didn't hold it against her given the circumstances.

Solas was an interesting character to say the least and grew more so the more Dorian studied him. He didn't seem to say much, but when he did speak, it was always worth listening. What he did do, Dorian noticed, was watch. Everything and everyone with eyes that seemed to be knowing and judging at the same time. Dorian was fairly sure that Solas liked him even less than Cassandra did.

The dwarf, Varric, seemed the friendliest of the bunch, filling what might have been awkward silences with cheerful commentary, references to old stories or seemingly good-natured snipes at Cassandra. For all Varric's easygoing nature though, Dorian was sure he didn't miss much. He seemed less inclined to dislike Dorian on principle than the others, at least, though Dorian was under no delusions that he had earned anything resembling trust yet either.

And then there was Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, so-called Herald of Andraste. In many ways he lived up to the tales Dorian had heard of him – skilled, determined, unflinching in the face of overwhelming odds and laughing in the face of danger. He seemed more than willing to face both those bad odds and danger to mete out justice. but Dorian could see cracks in the façade as well, hints that underneath was someone who felt as overwhelmed and out of his depth as Dorian himself did, but who was determined to keep going anyway. That, more than anything, was what convinced Dorian that he and Felix had picked the right allies.

Their plan was rather simple at its core – find a way to get into Redcliffe castle unseen, take out as many Venatori as they could, confront and stop Alexius. Somehow. That part was lacking in details, but considering what it could entail, Dorian was happy enough to leave it vague.

They were working on the first part right now – getting into the castle unseen. They had nothing concrete to go on yet, but apparently one of the southern mages in Redcliffe was the son of the former Arl, and therefore a possible source of information about secret ways into the castle. They were seeking him out now, which, it seemed, involved climbing rather steep trails up to abandoned wrecks of windmills.

"Sky's heavy," Varric mentioned, looking up. It wasn't, it seemed, some dwarven subterranean fear being expressed, but rather a comment on the Ferelden weather.

"Ah," Solas said quietly, "I was beginning to miss the mud."

Varric snorted.

"You southerners do have rather a lot of it," Dorian commented, carefully watching where he was placing his feet on the steep trail.

"It's not always mud," Varric replied. "Not here in Ferelden especially."

Cassandra made a noise of what sounded like disgust and put her hand on the pommel of her sword as they approached the ruined mill.

"I'll take Ferelden mud, dog shit and all, over whatever was in Free Marches sewers," Hawke put in, wrinkling his nose. "Do you know how many pairs of boots I ruined traipsing through Kirkwall's sewer system?"

"How do you think I felt," Varric asked with a snort of humour, "being altogether closer to it?"

"Ssh," Cassandra hissed as she cautiously bent her head to look through the tumbled wall. "Connor, are you here?"

A noise came from around the side of mill and a young man stepped out, slight and wearing rather drab robes. He frowned hard at Dorian and said nothing. It wasn't exactly a rousing stamp of approval Dorian could've hoped for, but probably the best he could've realistically expected. He did his best to try and look friendly and non-threatening while the lad continued to frown at him.

"We need your help, Connor," Hawke said, drawing his attention away from Dorian. "We're going to stop Alexius, tonight if possible, but we need a way into the castle, a way Alexius and his people won't know about."

"Oh," Connor said. "Is that why you're up here then? To use the passageway?"

"We were up here to ask you if you knew of any way in actually, but I think you just answered that," Hawke said with a wry smile, though he sounded pleased. "There's a passageway?"

"Under the rubble here. It leads – or at least once led – into the basement of the castle. The Hero of Ferelden used it when she–" he paused, wincing, before finishing with "–came to stop me."

"You were possessed, were you not?" Solas asked. The lad nodded, and Solas said, "I imagine it was the spirit then that she came to stop."

That piqued Dorian's interest. "Very few people can survive the process of casting out a demon," he said. "And most that do die soon after, either by their own hand or by pining away." He gave Connor a formal half bow. "I am honoured to meet someone with such inner strength."

The lad took a step back, looking thoroughly flustered. "You don't understand. I invited the demon in. She promised to save my father, but all she did was keep him asleep while she... while _I_ played with the lives around me. So many died, and it was all my doing. I should have been in a circle where templars could have stopped me, but my mother... I'm not strong. I need to be watched."

Maker, was that what they'd been telling the boy? Though in truth, given what he'd heard about Southern attitudes towards magic, Dorian supposed it was just lucky they hadn't made the poor thing tranquil the second he'd been freed from the demon. He supposed, when compared to that, thoroughly brainwashing him to believe he could never trust himself was the more humane option.

It still made Dorian irrationally angry on Connor's behalf. "Tell me," he asked him, "did you know what a demon was capable of when you invited it in?"

"Not really." Connor looked down. "My mother hired an apostate to teach me how to use my magic, but he didn't really tell me much." His expression grew fiercer as if his feet had angered him. "He was too busy poisoning my father on Teyrn Loghain's orders."

Varric whistled quietly. "You've had it rough, kid."

Dorian agreed, but persisted with his line of questioning. "If you had known, would you have still done it?"

"Of course not." Connor looked up, meeting Dorian's gaze far more strongly. "That doesn't excuse what I did, the blood on my hands is still there."

"The blood on your hands may be your responsibility," Dorian acknowledged, "but that isn't the same thing as it being your fault. And even if I agreed with you completely on that matter, that doesn't change what I'm about to tell you. Are you listening?" He waited until he got the tiniest of nods from Connor. "Good. Of all the mages in this village, Southern and Tevinter alike, you are the one I least fear giving into demons or temptation of darker magics, and it's because you still feel the responsibility of that blood on your hands."

Connor opened his mouth and then closed it again, frowning slightly. Dorian had clearly given him a lot to think about.

"Well said," Solas murmured to Dorian.

Hawke was giving Dorian a thoughtful look that made him feel like he was being completely re-evaluated. "More to you than meets the eye," Hawke observed.

"Unbelievable, I know, when what meets the eye is so amazing," Dorian said with a theatrical gesture at himself, both to take the attention off Connor and because it was the only way he really knew how to deal with comments like that.

Varric chuckled. "I'm not sure about amazing, but certainly sparkly. I take it you don't get called on much for the sneaky kind of work? And talking about work, someone said something about rubble to be removed?"

"It's in here," Connor said, pointing through the gap in the mill wall. "A trapdoor in the floor."

"Thank you," Hawke told him, putting his hand on Connor's shoulder. "We're going to try and do this quietly, but you might want to duck out of the way just in case. Either way though, I promise Alexius' hold on the mages will be dealt with by morning."

"Thank you, Herald." Connor nodded and slipped off the way he'd come.

Varric pushed his sleeves up. "Right then, manual labour awaits." With a hand on what was left of the wall, he leapt over it with surprising lightness for such a stocky form. "Don't suppose anyone bought a shovel?"

"Allow me to demonstrate," Dorian said. Then he turned his attention to pile of debris covering the floor where the trap door had to be. He took a moment to visualise where the debris came from and where he could safely shift it without it being in danger of falling down upon them. Then, with a deep breath and a more theatrical gesture than was absolutely necessary (it never hurt to look impressive when doing something impressive, after all), he weaved his will and his magic through everything, moving it until what he was looking at matched the picture he'd formed in his mind.

"Nicely done!" Varric said. "Could've used you in Kirkwall after it all went to... well, even more shit."

Moving the rubble had revealed a dusty and quite possibly rotted wooden trapdoor. It didn't exactly promise a salubrious environment beneath it. "Ten royals say we all need new boots when this is over," Hawke said with what Dorian was beginning to realise was his customary wry humour.

With a tut, Cassandra moved forward. She crouched by the trapdoor and opened it by using her belt knife in a hole at the edge of the door. Beneath it was a dark tunnel down from which an unedifying stench arose. Dorian caught sight of a ladder at one side of the hole.

"I will go first," Cassandra said and moved herself around to do just that.

They all paused when she climbed down out of sight through the opening. As if waiting, Dorian thought half hysterically, for sounds of something trying to kill her. When a couple of seconds passed with nothing, Hawke turned to Dorian. "After you," he said, gesturing at the hole with a formal gesture dramatic enough to be worthy of Dorian himself.

"Well, this should be an adventure," Dorian muttered to himself as he sat on the edge of the hole and dangled his feet over it. He came in contact with the rungs of the ladder, grabbed onto it and started climbing down, thankful at least that he didn't have to jump into an unknown darkness.

The climb down was about eight feet he estimated when he finally reached the bottom. He stepped away from the ladder to stand with Cassandra and called magic to his hand to illuminate their surroundings. It seemed they were not so much in a basement as in a dungeon, thankfully disused and not, it seemed so far, left full of bones. It smelled dank and old; water dripped down the corners of walls where mould and some nasty looking mushrooms grew. The only sounds were the others making their way down the ladder behind him.

Cassandra took an old torch from a wall bracket. "Light this, please, if you would," she said, pointing it at Dorian.

Dorian directed a tiny bit of fire magic at the torch with a casual wave. "It doesn't look like anyone's been down here in quite some time," he observed.

"For which we can probably be grateful," Solas said from behind him.

Cassandra strode off, glancing into cells as she went, and turning to the right at the end of the corridor, taking the light with her. Dorian stayed where he was, so his magical flame could help Varric find his way down the ladder.

"Veilfire?" Solas commented. "Is that knowledge still common in Tevinter?"

"It's a fairly simple and well known spell," Dorian said, looking down at the flame in his hand. "I think I was seven when I mastered it. Is it not here?" He looked from Solas to Hawke and back.

"I'm not sure I ever heard it referred to as veilfire, but my father taught me something similar," Hawke said bemused, conjuring his own light in his hand.

"Interesting," Solas said. "You realise it is far more than simple illumination, yes?"

Before anyone could answer, Cassandra came back. "Varric, your skillset is needed if we're to reach further in."

"Sure thing, Seeker. Anything to escape this class in magical theory." Varric winked at Hawke before trotting after Cassandra.

"He's quite right in that this is probably not the time and place, but if you would wish to pursue this discussion later....?" Dorian asked hopefully. There was little that he enjoyed as much as discussing magic, and to have a chance to get perspectives that were far removed from any he would have encountered back home was an opportunity he didn't want to miss.

"Of course," Solas said with a slight smile, his eyes narrowing as if assessing Dorian. "I'd welcome that."

They followed the other two around a corner and past some more cells to where Varric was now kneeling, his lockpicks busy at work. "Hey, watch the hair," he complained at Cassandra who had apparently held the lit torch a little too low.

"You said you couldn't see," Cassandra pointed out.

"You just don't do happy mediums, do you?" he said, sounding cross. "It's all black/white, right/wrong, full on charge or abject surrender. You need to learn the art of picking out the middle ground, Seeker."

He stood up, carefully avoiding the torch. "There, open."

Hawke shook his head. "It's like travelling with children," he commented to Dorian. "Any moment now one of them is going to start complaining the other is looking at them." He didn't sound as put out as his words suggested, however. In fact his voice seemed downright fond.

Varric stroked a hand over his head. "Hey, I think you actually singed me!" He scowled at Cassandra.

She huffed at him and then drew her sword. Dorian saw Varric's eyes actually widen a little before she put her free hand out to the door and opened it.

Beyond lay a small stockroom, empty of life beyond a few rats and some spiders. Stairs led off from the opposite wall. "This has been rather anti-climatic so far," Dorian observed.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Hawke suggested. "I'm sure we'll be dodging swords and fireballs soon enough."

The door at the top of the stairs opened into another empty room. So far so disappointing, but this room's door opened into a corridor, and the sound of arguing voices could be heard nearby. Dorian couldn't make out what they were saying, but he could hear them clearly enough to realise they were speaking Tevene.

Hawke slipped out into the corridor, moving far more stealthily than Dorian would have expected of a man so flashy in a fight. He returned a moment later. "Next set of rooms over has been set up as some sort of barracks for the Tevinter soldiers," he said. "I don't know how many Alexius brought with him, but I'm guessing almost all of those not on active duty are in there now. We go in, hit them hard, take them out, but if we can, we do it quietly enough to not alert anybody else..."

"That is a lot easier said than done," Cassandra said, but she lifted up her shield and sword ready. "Unless one of you knows some kind of noise dampening spell."

"I might be able to help there," Solas volunteered, "but you'll have to work quickly in the short window I give you."

"Bianca is ready when you are," Varric said, lifting his hefty crossbow.

Dorian blinked at the dwarf. "You named your crossbow 'Bianca'?"

"What can I say?" Varric replied. "A beautiful name for a beautiful work of art."

"Is this a Southern thing?" Dorian wondered. "Do you all name your weapons?"

"More of a Varric thing," Hawke told him.

"Oh good. I was afraid you were going to tell me you call your staff something ridiculous like Minerva."

"Actually it's called the Key." Hawke paused, looking embarrassed. "Long story."

"It can wait," Cassandra said brusquely. "Let's do this." But she didn't move, just stood half-glaring at Hawke, clearly waiting for his word.

Hawke turned to Dorian. "You sure you're not going to have any problems going up against your own people?"

Dorian drew himself up to his full height and reached for his staff. "They may be countrymen of mine, but I can assure you they are not 'my people'." He tried not to feel offended at the question. After all, it was a logical worry for his companions to have.

His answer seemed to be enough to satisfy Hawke, at least, because he nodded and turned to the others. "All right. Solas does his thing first and then the rest of us do ours. Just... try not to hit anyone on our side. Also don't get killed."

"I'll charge in and grab their attention to give you time to cast," Cassandra said, starting to move.

"Wait!" Varric grabbed her arm. "You'll make too much noise. Let me do that." He reholstered the crossbow and trotted off, stopping just before the relevant doors, where he began to whistle a jaunty tune before pushing open the door. "Oh, hello there." Dorian could hear him say. "I seem to have taken the wrong turn. Do any of you many, _many_ good people know where I can find the quartermaster? He's expecting me. I've a vital shipment of early death..."

Solas made a small noise and rushed into position, and the rest of them followed. As soon as they reached the open doorway, Dorian could feel Solas pulling on a large amount of power. Inside the room, some kind of sucking vortex formed, pulling all the bewildered, half-dressed men into the centre of the room and certainly not leaving them any breath with which to shout.

It was unlike any spell that Dorian had seen before, and he definitely wanted to pick the elf's brain later if he got the chance.

Right now though, he was more eager to prove that he could be counted on in a fight and quickly traced the glyph for a fire mine in the air, watching in satisfaction as the ground beneath where the men were struggling began to glow red as it charged with his power.

He felt his hair begin to stand on end, the air becoming charged with static as beside him Hawke released a powerful burst of chain lightning.

It inevitably made _some_ noise, all this elemental power being wielded, but thanks to Solas' vortex holding the enemy trapped, it was over very quickly. The unprepared soldiers hadn't stood a chance.

Varric whistled appreciatively as he holstered his crossbow, nudging one of the fallen with his foot. "I never want to get on the wrong side of you three working together."

Even Cassandra looked impressed... and a little worried. Hawke, however, looked nothing but impressed when he clapped a hand on Dorian's shoulder. "When this is over, you're going to teach me that glyph."

Dorian gave him a half bow. "It would be a genuine pleasure, I assure you," he said, relieved that he seemed to have dispelled whatever doubts Hawke had about him, at least for the moment.

"We should move on while we still have the advantage," Cassandra said. "We must find the magister."

They made their way through the castle, taking out every guard they came across with relative ease. Though none of the encounters matched that first one in way of numbers, these men were actually on duty and so both more armoured and more ready for them, even when they still had the element of surprise.

By the time they reached the outside of the great hall where Alexius should hopefully be, Dorian not only felt like he had begun to get a grasp on the way his companions fought, but had also started to find ways to make his own fighting style fit with theirs. Despite the rather dire circumstances, he couldn't deny that it was rather exhilarating. He couldn't help but hope that he'd get the chance to do more fighting alongside them in the future, though hopefully against less... emotionally problematic enemies.

The time for subtlety apparently over, Hawke threw open the huge doors and strode in, staff ready and Cassandra at his side, the others behind. They were immediately rushed by two of Alexius' guards. Hawke's ice spell took out one; Cassandra's sword the other.

As they fell, they revealed Alexius beyond them, rising up from a throne-like chair on a raised platform, Felix to the left of him and an elven woman in Ferelden mage robes standing to the right of him and below. Dorian stayed back, not wanting to reveal himself immediately. Cassandra positioned herself by the door, opresumably in case guards they'd somehow missed came along to join the party.

"My friends,"Alexius exclaimed, "what is the meaning of this?"

"You and I need to have a chat, Alexius," Hawke told him with a grin that was more like a wild animal baring its teeth. "I don't expect you're going to like it."

"Have you thought this through, Herald?" Alexius asked. "I thought you wanted my help with your little rift problem."

Felix sighed. "He knows everything, Father."

Alexius turned to his son. "What have you done?"

"Your son is concerned that you're involved in something terrible," Hawke said before Felix could reply. "Considering what we've already found, rightly so."

"So speaks the thief! Did you think you could turn my son against me?" Alexius stepped down from his platform to confront Hawke. "You walk into my stronghold with your stolen mark, a gift you don't even understand, and think you're in control? You're nothing but a mistake."

Dorian could feel himself tensing up in reaction to Alexius. He knew the man, knew the signs. Alexius was running far closer to the edge than they had thought. Or was safe, for any of them.

If Hawke sensed the same thing, Dorian couldn't tell from looking at the man. He seemed almost relaxed as he raised a challenging eyebrow at Alexius. "If you know so much, then tell me what this mark on my hand is for."

"It belongs to your betters. You couldn't even begin to understand its purpose."

"Father, listen to yourself." Felix, however, was obviously appalled. "Do you know what you sound like?"

"He sounds exactly like the sort of villainous cliché everyone expects us to be," Dorian said, before Alexius could answer. He kept his tone pleasant, but it was an effort. Unlike Felix, he'd passed appalled a while back and was now working on straight up anger.

"Dorian," Alexius said, almost sounding sad. "I gave you a chance to be a part of this. You turned me down. The Elder One has power you would not believe. He will raise the Imperium from its own ashes."

"You serve someone who calls himself 'The Elder One'?" Hawke asked, his entire being projecting 'you've got to be joking'. "No, that doesn't scream crazy at all."

His humour was lost on Alexius, who appeared enraptured in his own nasty little fantasy. "Soon he will become a god. He will make the world bow to mages once more. We will rule from the Boeric Ocean to the Frozen Seas–"

Storytime was thankfully interrupted by the elven woman. "You can't involve my people in this!"

He was so very different from the mentor that Dorian had known and respected for years that he could almost believe this was a totally different man. "Alexius, this is exactly what you and I talked about not wanting to happen. Why would you support this?" He needed to understand why, what could change the Alexius he knew into... this.

"Stop it, Father," Felix put in. "Give up the Venatori. Let the southern mages fight the Breach, and let's go home."

Alexius turned to face his son and spoke softly. "No. It's the only way, Felix. He can save you."

"Save me?" Felix stepped back, looking like he really didn't like the implications of that.

"There is a way. The Elder One promised. If I undo the mistake at the Temple..."

"I'm going to die. You need to accept that."

Alexius turned back to the rest of them and raised his voice. "Seize them, Venatori. The Elder One demands this thief's life."

"Who are you talking to, Magister?" Varric asked, hoisting his crossbow and moving closer. "You do realise you're alone here, don't you?"

"We stopped and paid our respects to your men along the way," Hawke told him. "I'm pretty sure they're all taking a nap. Well, the ones that are still breathing anyway."

Alexius stepped back, clearly shocked by this. "You are a mistake. You should never have existed." He raised his gloved hand, a familiar amulet in his palm; it started to glow.

_Maker, was he really attempting..._

Everything seemed to happen at once then. Dorian swung his staff at the amulet, desperately trying to counter what Alexius was attempting to do and yelling his denial as he did so. At the same time Varric pushed forward, trying to knock Hawke out of the way. Alexius' spell went off, and the world disappeared in a swirling green vortex of energy.

***

The first thing Varric became aware of was standing in waist-deep water that stank worse than Kirkwall docks. The next was someone splashing about and exclaiming "Blood of the Elder One" as if that was something folk said nowadays.

The third thing was easily the worst though. The dim light around him was red-stained and somehow throbbing, and he only had to look up to see the giant crystals of red lyrium, poisoning everything.

Then two well-armed soldier types rushed towards him, swords raised, and so he stopped thinking 'what the fuck?' for now while he concentrated on the more urgent business of staying alive.

As he somersaulted back, lightning bolts crackled past him, and he thanked the Maker that, wherever he'd found himself now, Hawke was there too. "You got the first clue about this?" he asked as he raised Bianca again.

"Not really, beyond not good," Hawke replied, moving the Key in an arc in front of him, freezing their attackers in place.

As Varric let loose a barrage of explosive bolts ready to capitalise on Hawke's ice spell, he yelled, "A bad case of interrupted magister spell? Face it, Hawke. This could only happen to us."

As their attackers stumbled back, they were engulfed in a fireball and a newly familiar voice complained, "If this kind of thing happens to you often I may have to rethink our alliance." Varric turned his head to see Dorian standing off to the side and behind them, leaning on his staff as if it was the only thing keeping him standing.

Varric finished off the one soldier left twitching. He took a quick moment to look around for anyone else who might have been transported to wherever this was with them, but it was only the three of them in this... flooded prison by the look of it.

"You all right there, Sparkler?" he asked. The Tevinter wasn't looking so hot.

"I'll survive," Dorian replied, pushing himself more upright. "Just need a moment to get my bearings."

"When you do, maybe you can locate ours as well," Hawke drawled, sliding his staff back onto his back straps. "Any idea where we are? Or what happened exactly?"

Dorian was very obviously looking around them now. "Interesting..." He turned to face Hawke. "It's probably not what Alexius intended. The rift must have moved us to... what? The closest confluence of arcane energy?"

Hawke frowned. "The last thing I remember we were in the castle hall." He glanced at Varric. "You?"

"Same. The magister had just completed his rapturous ode to the Elder One and had started playing with a glowing green something. He seemed to be about to aim it at you."

"Let's see... if we're still in the castle, then it... isn't." Dorian's face suddenly lit up with comprehension. "Ah, of course!" he said almost gleefully, all but jumping around as he spoke. "It's not where, but _when_! Alexius used the amulet as a focus. It moved us through time!"

"And just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder..." Varric sighed. "Look, I'm sure you two want to talk about when we are and how we can get back, but any chance you can do that somewhere with altogether less rank water and red lyrium?"

Hawke's attention was immediately focused on him. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again with a frown and turned to Dorian instead. "What was Alexius trying to do?" he asked, even as he reached out and squeezed Varric's shoulder in silent support.

"I believe his original plan was to remove you from time completely," Dorian said. "If that happened you would never have been at the Temple of Sacred Ashes or mangled his Elder One's plan."

Hawke let out a sound that might have been a laugh under other circumstances. "Among other things," he huffed, and Varric just knew he was thinking about Kirkwall and how things might have been different if he hadn't been there.

"I think your surprise appearance made him reckless," Dorian continued. "He tossed us into the rift before he was ready. I countered it, the magic went wild, and here we are. Make sense?"

"What would make sense to me would be getting out of this room." Varric waded to the edge of the room for at least a little respite. If the humans could just _try_ to remember they had a foot or so more breathing space than he had...

"See if you can do anything with that door lock then," Hawke suggested, nodding towards it. "I'll find out if our friends here have anything useful on them."

Dorian moved over with Hawke to check the fallen guards' bodies, still talking. "I don't even want to think about what this will do to the fabric of the world. We didn't travel through time so much as punch a hole through it and toss it in the privy."

Hawke snorted. "You certainly have a way of describing things."

"Privy seems pretty accurate to me," Varric grumbled half beneath his breath as he approached the metal gate. Louder, he said, "Before I do this, check for a key on those two. Otherwise what were they doing in here? You don't leave prisoners with their swords, generally speaking."

"Working on it," Hawke said, from where he was elbow deep in the water, searching through the dead man's pockets. He looked up long enough to meet Varric's eyes. "We'll get out of here. Don't worry."

"Indeed," Dorian chimed in, giving Varric a reassuring smile. "After all, I'm here. I'll protect you." And that made him feel _so_ much better.

"Does that mean you have a plan to get us back?" Hawke challenged.

"I have some thoughts on that," Dorian replied. "They're lovely thoughts. Like little jewels."

Hawke snorted again then made a sound of triumph. "Got it!" he said, straightening back up and tossing a key to Varric.

Varric opened the gate, not that it helped much as it just let him into a corridor containing more cells, more water and more red lyrium, but there were stairs up visible at the end of it. Up seemed a fantastic idea right now.

"Hey. Sparkler," he called out. "Could Cassandra and Chuckles be here somewhere too?" The thought of them lost amongst all this red lyrium was worrying.

Dorian made a thoughtful sound. "I doubt the rift was large enough to bring the whole room through. Alexius wouldn't risk catching himself or Felix in it. They're probably still where and when we left them, in some sense, anyway."

Which meant, if they didn't get back to exactly the same place they disappeared from, the elf and the Seeker would be fighting the magister alone. Fiona too possibly. Not good, but nothing to be done about it right now.

The mages came up behind him, so he stepped out into the corridor. They took a look in each of the cells as they passed them, but they were all empty of anything but more red lyrium. The stairs led up to an unlocked door and beyond that was a kind of crossroads. Oh, and more red lyrium, of course. Just in case he'd started missing it.

"Can't say I think much of the décor," Hawke said, frowning at a jagged shard jutting out of the floor so completely it was blocking a doorway.

"If this is the future, we've got to change it," Varric said. "That's possible, right? We can make sure this shit goes back underground where it belongs?"

"Nothing is set in stone," Dorian said. "We get back, we should be able to change what happens – by our presence alone, if nothing else."

The prison was a maze, but largely empty. They did find a vaguely familiar elf in one of the cells, but he didn't seem to even notice they were there, so lost was he in reciting the Chant. Varric opened his cell door for him anyway.

At the top of more stairs they found a kind of platform above murky depths, and there more guards found them. The fight was short but not sweet, and then they were back exploring more cells.

That was when he heard her voice. "The light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world and into the next..."

"That's the Seeker!" Varric hissed urgently. "What's wrong with her voice?"

Hawke's lips were pressed together, thinned into a tight line as if bracing himself. "Let's go find out," he said, taking the lead and turning down the corridor the sound of her voice was coming from.

"For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water..."

They found her sitting on the cold stone floor of a cell which was thankfully dry and free of red lyrium, but... a red mist still surrounded her. "Seeker?" Varric said weakly, suddenly short of breath. "Cassandra? Are you all right?"

She looked up and her eyes were red. Not red like she'd been crying, but _red_ red, red lyrium red. "You've returned! Can it be? Has Andraste given us another chance?"

"Seeker, what have they done to you?" Varric stared in horror.

"Varric, get the door open," Hawke said urgently.

He didn't need to be told twice. Balancing Bianca against a wall, he knelt and got to work.

Cassandra didn't move. "Maker forgive me. I failed you. I failed everyone. The end must truly be upon us if the dead return to life." Varric let the door swing open.

"We didn't die, we just travelled forward in time," Hawke said, then made a face. "That still sounds all kinds of crazy."

"If we find Alexius, we may be able to return to the present," Dorian put in.

"Go back in time?" Cassandra asked, finally standing up. "Then... can you make it so that none of this ever took place?"

"That's the plan," Hawke said. "Want to help us put it in motion?"

She walked the few steps to join them. This close, the red miasma was obvious around her, and Varric had to take a step back. "After you died," she said to Hawke, "we couldn't stop the Elder One from rising. Empress Celene was murdered. The army that swept in afterwards, it was a horde of demons. Nothing stopped them."

"We will," Hawke told her in a voice that didn't accept any alternatives. "We'll make it back, and we'll stop it all. I promise."

Varric closed his eyes briefly, sending up a prayer to Maker knew where that Hawke wouldn't be proven a liar.

They scavenged a sword and shield for Cassandra from the guards they'd just killed, and when they were equipped, she looked at least a little closer to her old self. Varric decided not to ask again what had happened to her. It didn't matter; it was never going to happen. Hawke was going to see to that.

So they returned to wandering the prison maze, trying to find a way up and out. "If I may ask, Cassandra," Dorian began, formal tone at odds with the tentative expression he was wearing, "what year is it? How long has it been?"

"9:42 Dragon," she answered, her voice still all wrong, weird and throaty.

"Maker," Hawke murmured. "All of this happened in just one year?"

"The demons, the red lyrium, what it did to people," Cassandra said. "No one could stand against them. Every force that tried fell, one after another."

"I fear I don't know much at all about red lyrium," Dorian said. "What does it do, exactly?"

"It's a disease," Cassandra answered before Varric could. "It infects a person's body when they're near it for too long. To start with, the Venatori forced it on people, who would start growing crystalline tumours all over their bodies, more and more of them, until they simply became red lyrium. This was then harvested by the Venatori and their servants in order to infect more people. Now red lyrium is everywhere, and so they don't need to bother forcing the process."

"Shit," Varric whispered, and she turned to him.

"I remember you telling me it was evil. I didn't know then how right you were."

"Is that why you're..." Dorian trailed off, but gestured at Cassandra.

She seemed to understand. "Yes... and no. We had thought Seekers were immune to the infection. I certainly seemed to be, but now I am like this. I'm... not sure what it means."

Silence fell then for a while, leaving them all with their own thoughts. Finally Hawke stirred and asked, "So, Dorian, feel like sharing some of those little jewels of ways to get us back?"

Dorian took a deep breath. "Our only hope is to find the amulet that Alexius used to send us here. If it still exists, I can use it to reopen the rift at the exact spot we left." He paused and then tacked on a, "Maybe."

Varric didn't like the sound of that 'maybe' so decided to ignore it.

"Leliana is here somewhere if she yet lives," Cassandra said. "We should find her."

"Of course. There's no way I'm leaving anyone..." Hawke turned sharply to look at her. "Is there anyone else?"

"Possibly." She frowned. "Most of the Inquisition were either killed or... converted by red lyrium infection. So many..." She paused and shook her head as if trying to clear it. "There were others that seemed immune, and they might yet live. Two, I know, were taken here. Your friends..."

"Who?" Varric asked, not sure he wanted the answer.

Before she could answer, a voice drifted out from a corridor they were passing. A very familiar voice. Varric turned to Hawke in time to see him go absolutely white and grim-faced, then brush past all of them to run at full speed towards where the voice seemed to be coming from.

Varric followed, 'cause what else could he do? He knew that voice as well as Hawke did. "Fenris."

" _Fastevas! Na via lerno victoria et vio mea sic victoria mea–_ H– Hawke?"

Varric ran around a corner only to almost hit Hawke, who was staring, mouth open in horror, into a cell. And there was Fenris, gone full lyrium ghost as he tended to when enraged, only the lyrium was... red.

Hawke swallowed hard and moved closer to the bars of the cell. "I– it's me," he said, voice hoarse and cracking. "Fenris, I'm so sorry...." He reached out to touch the elf.

Fenris moved back from Hawke's touch, becoming more solid again, but remaining red. "They said you were dead! I should have known that _vorator-kaffas_ was lying. Let me out of here! I'll destroy him. I'll rip out his filthy heart. I'll–" He stopped, breathing heavily. As Varric unlocked the door, Fenris said in a calmer but altogether more broken voice, "Are you real?"

Hawke reached out for Fenris again, only to stop, expression crumbling when the elf moved again to stay out of reach. "We're real," he said, letting his hand drop in defeat. "I promise you, Fenris, it's really us."

"You... You're not infected. Neither of you." Fenris looked between Hawke and Varric, obviously bewildered, but then he looked straight at Hawke and scowled. "Where have you been? We needed you!"

Varric watched Hawke flinch back as if Fenris had actually hit him, but it was Dorian who answered the question, having come up behind them with Cassandra. "That's entirely not his fault... Fenris, is it? We were sent forward in time by Alexius. We've been here a grand total of about an hour, so try to place your blame where it really belongs, which is not on your friends here."

Fenris snarled wordlessly at Dorian, the glowing red veins in his skin brightening as he clenched his fists and stepped forward.

"Elf," Varric said hurriedly, "Fenris. It's true. It looked like the magister had killed us to those that were there, but really we were sent ahead to now, and if we can get back there, we can stop any of this from actually happening."

That made Fenris pause at least. "Stop it?"

"Yeah, only we need Sparkler here to do it, so no chest-fisting, okay?"

"You're working with a filthy Venatori?" Fenris growled.

Varric stepped between him and the mages. "You did hear the part where we need him to stop all this, yeah?"

"Fenris," Hawke said, voice a lot more steady than it had been earlier. "Stop. Varric's right. Besides, Alexius would have actually killed us if not for Dorian. He saved our lives."

"That bastard Alexius yet lives." Fenris seemed to relax a little. "He did this to me. Tell me we get to kill him before you go back where you came from."

Hawke smiled then, and it was far from a pleasant expression. "Oh, we're going to kill him. When we get back to when we're supposed to be, we may even do it again."

"He has a lot of guards – warriors and Venatori." Fenris took a deep breath and then seemed to sag. "You'll want Vengeance." Varric actually thought Fenris was talking about the abstract concept until he added, "If you can stop him slaughtering us before we get anywhere near Alexius, anyway."

"Another of your compatriots?" Dorian asked, looking at Varric and Hawke questioningly.

Hawke shook his head, frowning. "I don't think–"

"Hawke." Varric winced, hating to have to say this. " _Vengeance_. As in the opposite to Justice, at least as far as demons are concerned."

That only made Hawke shake his head harder, though less in confusion and more denial now. "No. It can't- He wouldn't–" He turned to Fenris. "Tell me it's not... him."

"Without you, there was nothing to stop the demon doing what demons do." Fenris shrugged. "Anyway, only Justice could resist Corypheus' control."

"What's Corypheus got to do with anything?" Varric asked, as much to give Hawke some time as for any other reason.

"That's the Elder One's name," Cassandra said. "Few are allowed to use it."

"But Corypheus is dead," Hawke said, seeming to latch onto this new conversation topic with almost relish. "We killed him."

Fenris snorted, sneering with obvious disgust. "He didn't stay dead."

Varric looked between Fenris and Hawke. "I... don't understand."

"I'm afraid I don't either," Dorian put in, looking at them all. "Who is Corypheus? Beyond being this so called Elder One, I mean."

"He was a powerful darkspawn that had been imprisoned by the Grey Wardens near Kirkwall," Hawke said. "Talked and everything. He thought he was some kind of ancient magister, but we killed him. Very, very dead. The only way he could've been deader was if we cut him into little pieces afterwards."

"He got better," Fenris said bluntly. "He does that. Others have killed him too. Armies. All failed." He sneered. "They keep the abomination in a special room if you want him. He's as likely to rip us apart as help us."

"Don't call him that," Hawke said sharply. He frowned and rubbed a hand over his face. "I know that technically is what he is, but... Please, Fenris. Just... don't call him that."

"Nothing's changed," Fenris said, sounding bitter, or rather, even more bitter. "It's this way." He stepped forward but then stopped again in front of Varric. "Move out of the way, dwarf. Do not touch me."

Varric moved. "Are you... infectious?"

"No," Fenris said, striding past. "I burn."

"You mean that literally." Hawke was now frowning at Fenris. Or, more accurately, at his back, because Fenris had left this small area of cells and seemed to be heading to that platform where they'd fought the guards. They jogged after him.

"Wait up, Broody," Varric called. "We need to get you a weapon from somewhere."

"You don't," was all the reply they got to that.

"Well," Dorian said as they continued to chase after Fenris. "Interesting character, your friend. Was he always so... charming?"

Hawke sighed, the sound carrying a world of sadness. "He's always been... prickly, but not like this." He glanced at Dorian. "You better be right about being able to get us back, because there is no way we are letting this happen."

They heard a battle roar as Fenris reached the platform and caught up to see a ghostly red blur charging at a new lot of guards. They got to see first hand why he didn't need a weapon as he ran straight through one, emerging on the other side with a bloody heart in one hand. The soldier dropped dead to the floor, his flesh bubbling, and the others backed off in a hurry.

"Trust Fenris to get even more efficient at ripping hearts out," Hawke observed with a trace of his usual humour as he slammed his staff to the ground, sending a course of chain lightning through the remaining guards.

"You mean that's... normal for him?" Dorian asked, eyes wide, though it didn't stop him from throwing fire and ice at their opponents in equal measures.

"More or less," Varric said, hoping that Fenris' new red ghost form was as invulnerable to bolts as the old blue form had been. "Didn't you wonder what the lyrium veins did?"

"You mean to say that isn't part of that infection Cassandra was talking about?" Dorian asked, in between throwing spells.

"They didn't used to be red," Hawke replied. "But the markings were done to him years ago. By a magister."

Dorian's eyebrows rose in surprised recognition. "He's _that_ elf? I remember the stir when Danarius actually succeeded in his insane experiments."

Varric drew close to Dorian as the last soldier fell and murmured, "I wouldn't draw attention to your background if I were you. One way or another, that could get messy."

Dorian blinked in confusion for a second before comprehension dawned. "Ah. Yes, perhaps it would be best to keep our minds on the task at hand."

Fenris waited with his back to them at yet another set of steps. As soon as they were close, he started up again. "They keep all the 'special' prisoners here, close to the torture chamber," he said, sounding if possible even more enraged.

Hawke's expression remained carefully neutral, but Varric could tell by the way he tightened his jaw and how firm his grip on his staff had become that he was nowhere near as stoic as he was pretending.

"Of course there's a torture chamber," Dorian muttered. "This hellish nightmare wouldn't be complete without one."

The stairs led them up to what seemed to be a mess hall or something similar. Empty, thankfully; they'd probably already killed its ex-occupants. Fenris strode straight through without stopping, past even more giant red lyrium crystals. The stuff was growing from the walls as if it was somehow converting ordinary stone? Feeding on it?

It all made him shudder.

Fenris slammed open a door and marched through into a corridor. Following with the others, Varric walked up more steps and around a corner, and then, suddenly, he could hear voices.

"You've got it all wrong. If you want retribution for what was done to the mages, to the Wardens, to Hawke and all your friends, then you need to go after the real culprit. Alexius is no more than a hapless pawn. A victim really, just like them."

" **I will kill them all**."

"Shit," Varric muttered. That was Justice all right... or rather, all wrong.

Hawke, expression growing ever grimmer, just grabbed his staff tightly and headed in the direction from where the voices were coming.

"Hawke." Fenris paused outside the door. "Do not let your guard down."

That actually stopped Hawke's forward momentum, long enough for him to look searchingly at Fenris before nodding sharply once. Then he blasted the door off its hinges.

Inside was an odd scene. At first glance it seemed like two mages were sitting together at a small table, enjoying a glass of wine. But only one mage had wine, and the other one was wrapped in thin silver chains that looked easily broken, yet seemed to be tying him to the chair. The bound mage looked... like he had once been the mage Varric knew as Anders, Blondie... He was now something quite different. It wasn't just the red swirling eyes and scarlet glow through cracks in his skin. The skin itself looked waxy and almost congealed. The tips of his nose and ears and his fingers looked blackened. Patches of hair were missing from his scalp and one side of his face hung loose and unanimated.

As the wine-drinker leapt from his chair, tripping backwards, Vengeance turned to look at the doorway. **"What foul trickery is this?"** he demanded, staring at Hawke.

Hawke looked at him with an unchanging expression, but the glimpse Varric caught of his eyes... the amount of pain and anger he saw in his friend's gaze was almost enough to make even him want to recoil.

The wine-drinker _did_ recoil violently when Hawke turned that gaze on him, but he didn't get more than a foot away before Hawke froze him where he stood. Hawke seemed to relish the wide-eyed terror of the man as he stalked across the room until he stood right in front of him. "He's right about one thing," Hawke told him in a disturbingly conversational tone. "You're all going to die." He hit the man with stonefist at point blank distance with predictably gruesome results.

Only then did Hawke shudder and turn to Vengeance. "I'm sorry I'm late," he said in an attempt at his usual masking humour, Varric was sure, but the effect was ruined when his voice cracked on the _sorry_.

" **Strange. I do not sense demon within you."** Vengeance had turned his head to follow Hawke, but his body remained immobile. **"You are no corpse. What are you?** "

"Someone who keeps failing to save the people he cares about, it seems," Hawke sighed, defeated. He met Vengeance's gaze. "You know who I am. Even if..." He swallowed hard. "You know who I am."

Varric stepped close to Hawke, trying to lend some unspoken support. Maker, hadn't the man been through enough?

Vengeance seemed to twitch a little. " **If you are truly Hawke, you must release me.** "

"That's the plan," Hawke told him, moving closer so he could kneel and look at the chains that bound Vengeance. He paused and glanced up at him. "You're not going to try and kill us the second I do, are you?"

Vengeance... didn't answer.

Cassandra immediately moved closer, standing behind the chair, sword ready.

"Back off," Hawke all but snarled at her. "No one is touching him."

"Don't be ridiculous, Hawke," she growled back. "You and your Tevinter friend are the only people who matter here, the only people who can stop any of this ever happening. You _must_ live."

"She's right," Fenris said, also coming closer. "Listen up, abomination. You want revenge? We all do. We're going to kill Alexius. Join us, or not. How will vengeance be served if you're dead because you tried to kill Hawke, and we stopped you?"

" **I will... never...** hurt Hawke!" Vengeance's voice changed back to a far more familiar one at the end of that declaration.

Hawke's attention was immediately completely focused on him again. "Anders?" he asked softly, the first time any of them had spoken the name.

"Love..." Now Anders' body twisted in its chains, where Vengeance had stayed immobile. "Don't know how you're... alive. Don't care. I... can't stay on... on top. Corypheus... too powerful. Justice can... block him, but I... will never... let him hurt you."

"I know you wouldn't," Hawke replied without hesitation, covering Anders' hand with his own. "Does Justice need to be... on top to block him? You can't... share? Work together?"

"He does, I... I wasn't strong enough, love. I'm sorry."

"No," Hawke said, his entire being suddenly all stubborn determination. "That answer isn't acceptable. I know you, both of you. You've always been at your best when you're working together, in concert. I've seen that. Let Justice block him; let him use his strength for that. You use yours to stay in control, _stay_ with me."

Anders stared miserably at Hawke. "I... I can't fight both him and Corypheus, love. I'm so sorry. So happy to see y–" Clenching his teeth, Anders tipped his head back. "He's coming. The Elder One! I... argh... **You will not have him**."

And that was that. Vengeance was back. Varric shook his head ruefully at the whole fucked up situation.

Hawke's shoulders slumped in defeat, but only for a handful of seconds before he was regarding Vengeance with the same determination with which he'd been regarding Anders. "Varric, Dorian and I, we're from the past. We got sent here when Alexius tried to wipe me out of existence, and Dorian stopped him. Like Fenris said, we're going after Alexius. But more than that, if Dorian can get hold of the amulet that sent us here, we can go back. Stop this. Bring justice to Corypheus, not just vengeance. Will you help us?"

" **Yes,** " Vengeance said. " **Free me.** "

"Hawke, are you sure...?" Varric started.

"Yes," Hawke replied, unwavering. Without looking away from Vengeance, he asked, "I don't suppose we have anything as prosaic as a key lying around do we?"

" **The chains are held with magic."**

"Stand back," Cassandra said, gripping her sword hilt in both hands and raising it, the blade pointing down to the ground. "I will cleanse the magic around him."

Hawke nodded and stood up, taking several large steps back, though his gaze never left Vengeance's.

Cassandra struck the tip of her blade into the floor, something Varric had seen her do once before. He wasn't sure how it failed to damage the sword. As before, a blue light radiated out from her, but this time it seemed more violet. He suspected it was mixed with red.

The light flared then vanished, and the chains fell from Vengeance, who immediately stood. Cassandra raised her sword again warily, but Vengeance did nothing immediately menacing.

" **I am ready.** "

Hawke nodded again, then headed for the door, turning his back on Vengeance. Deliberately, Varric was pretty sure, proving with foolhardy actions that he trusted Vengeance. "Let's get moving then," he said. "We've got a magister to school and a magic amulet to find."

Everyone else in the room waited for Vengeance to leave before making their own move. It was clear they all wanted to keep an eye on him; Varric certainly did. If Vengeance noticed, however, he didn't care, simply strode after Hawke.

" **We must hurry,** " he intoned. " **The darkspawn magister is coming here. He is close enough for me to sense him.** "

"Lovely," Dorian snarked. "Just what this whole ghastly enterprise was lacking, a deadline."

"This way," Fenris said and immediately strode off again as he had before.

"How come you know the castle layout so well?" Varric asked as they all hurried after him.

"It took a long time for Alexius to understand that no one will ever make me a slave again." It wasn't really an answer, but Varric wasn't sure he really wanted any more details.

" **He will die for that,** " Vengeance said, and Varric could feel his eyebrows lifting with surprise.

Hawke on the other hand, seemed to take Vengeance's defending of Fenris of all people completely in stride. "Took the words right out of my mouth," he said without missing a beat.

Varric couldn't help noticing that neither Cassandra nor Dorian were asking for an explanation of Vengeance. The Seeker already knew a lot about Anders, of course, even before the year into the future that Varric had missed. Dorian didn't though... well, he may have read Tale of the Champion.

Varric was about to ask him quietly when Fenris ran them into a larger chamber lit with a nauseating mix of red and green – red lyrium and a sodding rift. Apparently they came in indoor varieties now too.

"Ah, good," Hawke said, feral grin on his face as the rift pulsed and flared and sent demons pouring out of it. "Something to hit! I could use that right about now."

The succeeding fight was surreally familiar. There were moments during it that Fenris, Hawke, Vengeance and Varric moved as one, coordinating their attacks without discussion, just as they had back in Kirkwall before everything went bad. But those were only moments, broken jarringly by Fenris or Vengeance doing something incredibly foolhardy and violent, or Dorian and Cassandra adding in their own attacks and breaking the pattern.

And, of course, fights in Kirkwall never ended with Hawke closing a rift with his glowing green hand.

Dorian's eyes were bright with curiosity as the rift snapped closed under Hawke's efforts. "That really is the most fascinating thing to watch. You really have no idea how you do it?"

Hawke shrugged. "Like you said, wriggle my fingers, boom, rift closes. The mark didn't come with any instructions."

"When you took it into the future with you," Cassandra said, "we were defeated. Though it took us a while to know it."

Fenris snorted. "Do you want to see what a world without you looks like, Hawke?" he asked, a nasty edge to his voice. "This way." And off he went again.

"Is he afraid he'll wind down if he stops for just one moment?" Varric asked, hefting up Bianca again.

Fenris led them out into a cavernous area with a small dock in it. They pretty much ran straight into some kind of blood ritual that resulted in dead mages and summoned demons.

" **Foolish!** " cried Vengeance and waded straight in.

The others weren't far behind and they made quick work of the demons. Hawke glared down at the bodies of the dead mages as he leaned on his staff and caught him breath. "Blood magic," he said, his disgust evident in his voice and his posture. "Why do we always seem to stumble on idiots insisting on doing blood magic rituals?"

"They do it because they _can_ do it," Fenris said, returning to a more solid form. He was covered in blood himself, which his lyrium veins seemed to make glow. "Come, Hawke, see what magic has done to the world with you not in it to hold it back."

Dorian frowned at Fenris, and Varric saw him open his mouth, but he closed it again without saying anything. Which was a point in favour of his intelligence and self-preservation; any argument he could've made would probably have been met with violence.

Hawke, however, didn't seem willing to leave Fenris' comment alone. "You act like I buggered off to Rivain on vacation. I didn't _want_ to travel through time."

"But you did," Fenris said and turned aside. "You weren't here, and everything I'd ever warned you about magic became true, but even worse than I'd imagined. I knew magic corrupted, magic destroyed, magic enslaved and tormented, but this... Come and see, Hawke."

Hawke frowned and followed without comment when Fenris led the way up another set of stairs and out into a courtyard. He took one step outside and stopped dead so fast that Varric ran into the back of him.

A glance up was all it took for Varric to realise why Hawke had stopped. The sky... wasn't. No day, no night, no sun or moon, clouds or stars. Instead it was all the colour of the breach, sickly green. Everywhere. The Breach was no longer just a hole in the sky, it _was_ the sky.

"Sweet Maker," Hawke moaned, horrified as he stared up at it.

"Do you see why you have to live?" Cassandra asked quietly. "All that matters now is getting you back alive so this, all of us, never happen. We don't matter, even Anders. You must make it so we never exist, not like this."

The Breach filled the sky; red lyrium spouted cancerously from the ground. This was a future Varric wanted nothing to do with, but it had already been starting back where they came from. "Can't we go back further? Stop the Conclave? Better yet, never go near the Vinmark Mountains. Let Corypheus rot in his prison."

" **The Wardens would have freed him,** " Vengeance said, staring out into the large courtyard, which Varric now realised was dotted with rifts. " **It would have made no difference. They have long since paid for their weakness.** "

"Besides, if you start thinking like that, you'll never stop," Dorian put in, sounding more serious than he normally did. "If you go back to stop that, why not other things? Stopping a tyrant? Saving a loved one? Where would it end? Next thing you know someone will suggest going back in time and saving Andraste from the flames. And each thing you try to change would damage the fabric of time a little more. How much would it take to make it unravel completely?"

He shook his head and gestured at the courtyard. "This is what happens when you mess with time. Let's not compound Alexius' error with our own, shall we? However tempting, it isn't worth it."

"You're... not wrong." Varric sighed. He'd rather liked the thought of stopping himself and his brother going anywhere near the Deep Roads. Corypheus was to blame for much of this horror, but the red lyrium? That had started with him.

" **We must hurry** ," Vengeance said.

Hawke shook himself out of the horrified trance he seemed to have been in. He turned to look at Fenris and Vengeance. "I will stop this from happening," he told them both. "I promise." Then he strode forward, staff in hand, eyes burning with purpose.

Varric let out a breath and followed. This was what had made the man the Champion of Kirkwall – the fact that when you beat him down with more than anyone could possibly be expected to take, he just became this implacable, irresistible force that was going to continue moving forward no matter what you threw in his way. Maybe Andraste really had chosen him for this, since who else could've done it?

Two rifts later, they were back inside the castle again. Fenris led them straight through and down, into a large multi-levelled hall... full of another rift, demons, Venatori and soldiers. Great. Just sodding great.

"Everything we need for a perfect party," he said, raising Bianca again.

Vengeance surged down into the centre of the hall. He didn't cast like Anders had, but seemed to prefer to get close and fry the enemy with some kind of magical energy from his hands. Whatever it was, it shrivelled demons like flame on dry, dead leaves.

Fenris went for the closest mage because of course he did. He ran right through the poor bastard, causing him to explode, pretty much.

They were both... monstrous, but they were monsters on the right side, and that was all that mattered right now.

It didn't take them long to dispatch the last of the enemies in the room. Hawke eyed the bodies of the Venatori and their soldiers distastefully. "We should probably search them," he said, with a sigh as he bent over to do just that.

"Good idea," Dorian agreed, doing the same. "The ones that haven't exploded at least."

As they all bent to the task, Varric heard Hawke speaking quietly to Vengeance. "Thank you for protecting him when I couldn't," he said. "But you don't have to keep him... all the way down to keep him safe. He's stronger than that – you know that as well as I. If you give him a chance, protect him, but let him help–"

" **He was not strong,** " Vengeance replied, not bothering to modulate his volume at all. " **He wanted to give in.** " He turned to stare at Hawke straight in the eye. " **You were his strength.** "

"Just as he is mine," Hawke replied steadily. "If I had been in his shoes and thought him dead, well, I might have wanted to give in too. For a while. But then I would want to fight back. I'd lay odds that so does he now." He paused. "Ask him."

As Vengeance continued to stare silently, Varric straightened up to see what he had found in the dead man's pocket he'd been going through. As soon as he opened his hand and saw it, however, he gave a yell and dropped it, jumping backwards from where it landed.

"What is it?" Dorian asked, rushing over from his own search. The others were doing the same, but Dorian was closest to him so got there first. "Are you all right?" he asked, eyeing Varric for some kind of injury. "What did you find?"

"Red lyrium." Varric pointed at the shard on the floor. "I think it's been carved or something." He surreptitiously scrubbed his hand against his coat as soon as Dorian looked away.

"Interesting," Dorian said animatedly, leaning over to pick up the shard, but stopping short and reaching for a handkerchief out of one of the pouches on his belt first. "We should keep that – it feels like it could be important."

"It's part of the key," Fenris called over from where he stood by a huge door at one end of the hall. " _Fasta vass!_ You'll need them all to open this."

"Let me see," Dorian demanded imperiously as he hurried over to take a closer look. He didn't actually shove Fenris out of the way, but Varric thought that was more because the elf moved of his own accord. "Where did Alexius get this?" Dorian asked, clearly thinking aloud as he ran his fingers over the locking mechanism.

"He's scared," Fenris said bluntly. "He's right to be."

" **A door will not stop us.** " Vengeance strode over to it.

"Can we blast our way through?" Varric asked hopefully.

"Not without an explosion that would doubtlessly kill us as well," Dorian said, then his eyes lighted on Fenris, and his expression brightened. "It could probably be open without need of the keys from the other side, however. That ghosting through people trick you do, Fenris. Can you ghost yourself through a door just as easily?"

"I... don't know." Fenris frowned, deep grooves forming on his forehead.

"If you can, uh, 'ghost' through other people's armour, then surely..." Varric began.

"I couldn't ghost through my cell bars." Fenris reached out and touched the door with a flat hand and frowned. Then he moved to the side far enough to touch the wall around it. "Here maybe," he said, but he sounded doubtful. With a dull flare, his arm became transparent. Fenris pushed it at the wall and... it went through. A second later, all of him was in ghost form, and a second after that, he'd vanished.

Then the door seal glowed green, and the door gently opened.

Fenris was on the other side, of course. Looking just a little smug, or so Varric judged. The elf held up his finger to his lips and gestured with his head to the side.

Of all the rooms they'd come across in the castle, this was the one that seemed most liveable. Though only in comparison. It was dark and dim and full of rubble. Inside, up on the dais at one end stood Alexius. He was alone save for a figure crouched in the corner who, in the way he looked and moved, reminded Varric uncomfortably of Larius, the ghoul warden they'd met in Corypheus' prison.

They all stared for a moment, then Hawke stepped forward leading the way inside. Varric and the others followed a few steps behind.

"Alexius," Hawke called, when he got closer to the dais. "We need to have a long talk about what you've done, probably involving yelling and bleeding."

Alexius didn't turn around. "And here you are, finally. I knew you would appear again. Not that it would be now, but I knew I hadn't destroyed you." His voice became quieter as he spoke, and when he added, "My final failure," it was barely audible.

"Was it worth it?" Dorian asked, caught between anger and sadness. "Everything you did to the world? To yourself?"

"It doesn't matter now. All we can do is wait for the end."

" _You_ don't have long to wait," Fenris growled.

"All that I fought for, all that I betrayed, and what have I wrought?" Alexius asked. Then he answered himself. "Ruin and death. There is nothing else."

"Cheery fellow, isn't he?" Varric muttered.

"The Elder One comes – for me, for you, for us all."

A sudden movement to the side of Alexius caught Varric's eye. Vengeance was there, behind the shambling figure that had stayed silent all this time, just swaying slowly on the spot. Vengeance lifted the figure with a sparking hand around its throat.

"Felix!" Alexius cried out, the first sign of any liveliness he'd shown, and finally turned around.

Dorian's eyes widened in disbelief. "That's Felix?" His expression quickly morphed into anger. "Maker's breath, Alexius, what have you done?" he demanded, voice all but a growl.

The figure was unrecognisable as Felix. He looked more like one of the possessed dead that Varric had found himself having to rekill far too often.

"He would have died, Dorian. I saved him." Alexius said, then looked to Vengeance, "Please, don't hurt my son. I'll do anything you ask."

" **He is already dead** ," Vengeance said. " **A corpse animated by blight-taint. Understand, I do this only to hurt _you_ , however, and not as mercy.**" And with that he closed his fist through Felix's neck, effectively beheading him.

"No!" Alexius whispered, staring at his broken son. Then he raised his staff and yelled, "No!" slamming some kind of bolt of power at Vengeance, who went flying across the room.

"Anders!" Hawke yelled, slamming his own staff down sending lightning arcing towards Alexius.

The ensuing battle was hard fought. Driven mad by grief as he was, Alexius was still a powerful magister, and he seemed to have learned the ability to open rifts, which he did several times, so distracting Hawke with the effort of closing them, but eventually their combined power wore Alexius down until a lightning barrage from Hawke finally felled the man.

He laid curled in a heap on the ground, not breathing. It was over.

"Tell me he still has his ugly green medallion," Varric said.

Hawke quickly started searching the body.

"He wanted to die, didn't he?" Dorian asked, his eyes filled with what looked like grief as he watched Hawke work . "All those lies he told himself, the justifications. He lost Felix long ago and didn't even notice." He shook his head. "Oh, Alexius."

"Maybe we'll get the chance to tell the other Alexius, the one in our time, about what happened here," Varric offered. "Might be enough to get him to mend his ways."

" **No** ," Vengeance stated coldly. " **He too must die**."

"Agreed," said Fenris.

Varric almost laughed. "Listen to you two finally on the same page, never thought I'd see the day."

"All it took was the world ending," Hawke quipped, and despite everything Varric was happy to hear the black humour, however inappropriate it might have been. He was even happier when Hawke's next words were, "Got it," and he tossed something to Dorian.

Dorian quickly looked over the amulet. "This is the same one he used before – I think it's the same one we made in Minrathous. That's a relief." He looked up. "Give me an hour to work out the spell he used, and I should be able to reopen the rift."

" **You do not have an hour,** " Vengeance said. " **The Elder One is arriving. His demons will reach us within minutes.** "

As if something heard him, the castle around them immediately began to rumble. Small stones fell from the walls, and outside something huge screeched.

Fenris and Cassandra walked towards the grand door through which they'd entered before the fight. "We'll slow them down," Cassandra said.

"Take out as many as we can," Fenris added. "Coming, abomination?"

" **No, I... Anders wants to remain here and...** protect you, love." Anders was back in charge, and he turned to Hawke. "I think you're right. I think I can be strong. Go with Dorian and Varric, cast the spell. Justice and I will buy you as much time as we can."

Hawke shook his head, even as he reached out for Anders' hands. "I won't let you die for me," he said, his gaze taking in Cassandra and Fenris as well. "Any of you. There has to be another way-"

"We're already dead, love," Anders said, moving close to him. "You will be too if you stay. The only way we all get to live is for you to go back. You can do it, Hawke. You absolutely can. We will be together again in a far nicer world than this one. Now go. There's no time, not here!"

The door slammed behind Fenris and Cassandra, and the sound of combat could be heard even through the stone walls.

"I need you over here now, Hawke," Dorian called out urgently, the amulet spinning in a glowing vortex of magic between his hands.

Looking absolutely wrecked, Hawke hesitated long enough to give Anders one last passionate kiss. "I love you," he said as he pulled away, walking over to take his spot beside Varric, though his gaze never left Anders, who now stooped to claim Alexius' staff.

The door slammed back open, and a horde of demons and Venatori forces surged in, throwing Cassandra – no, just her body – to the floor. Anders raised his purloined staff and immediately sent a huge fireball flying straight into them., the bodies it producing causing a temporary obstruction in the doorway.

Varric could feel Hawke trembling beside him with the effort of refraining from helping, and that was with Anders holding his own. He didn't know what was going to happen when he inevitably faltered.

He wasn't the only one who noticed the razor edge on which Hawke was balanced. Dorian looked up from his casting long enough to say bluntly, "You move and we all die."

Varric gripped Hawke's arm. "Look away if you have to, but stay here. The world needs you."

Hawke didn't look away though; he seemed incapable of doing so. He did grab onto Varric's arm in turn, holding on tight enough that Varric was sure there would be bruises, but if it helped keep Hawke with him, it was a small price to pay.

After the long drawn out tension, when things finally happened they happened all at once. Dorian made a sound of satisfaction as the time rift roared open behind them, pulling them into it, just as the enemy overwhelmed Anders' position entirely.

The last thing Varric saw of that future was Anders disappearing under a veritable deluge of demons and Venatori.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawke returns to a warm welcome...

"We're too close. That's all I'm saying." Anders tried to loosen his jaw. He was getting too tense again.

"I know. You've already said that five times. Six now."

"Then why won't you listen?"

"I don't have a choice about listening, more's the pity," Fenris said, sighing heavily.

Anders made a noise of sheer exasperation. "Just how do you plan to explain to Hawke my absence due to the ravaging templar horde about to stream out of Therinfal to chop me into dog meat?"

Giddy barked and pushed into Anders' side. "Yes, I know you wouldn't eat me," Anders told him and pressed the fingers of his free hand into the crease between his brows. His head hurt.

" _Fasta vass_. Look, mage," Fenris started, and it was Anders' turn to sigh. Fenris soldiered on regardless. "Can you see a ravaging horde? No, because the redoubt is empty. Your route will take far too long. Hawke's message was clear."

"The place is surrounded by trees and hills – there could be a bloody horde of hordes in there! And it's clouding over. Soon it will be raining again, and we won't be able to see a blasted thing."

"Then they won't be able to see us either," Fenris said implacably.

"Look, _elf_ , maybe you don't realise just how much Justice wants us to go on a suicide raid up there." Not to mention the other nagging presence in his head that he was successfully managing to ignore right now. It seemed to want him to go to the redoubt for altogether different reasons.

"If you start in that direction I'll knock you out and carry you," Fenris said in a growl.

"As if he'd let you!" Anders took a deep breath and sighed. "He really wants to, or part of me does. I'm never sure these days. Those templars deserve to die."

"You really don't want to do that."

The strange voice came from directly behind them – _close, too close_ – and all three of them went into defensive postures as they spun around to confront the speaker...

A young man wearing a large floppy hat and clothes that were just the right side of being rags was sitting on a low-hanging tree branch watching them. Except, Anders realised – or Justice did – it wasn't exactly a young man sitting there.

"Get down from there!" Fenris ordered, looking so menacing that the lad would have been a fool to obey.

"Wait." Anders went to put his hand on the elf's shoulder, but thought better of it. "He's not... I'm not sure what he is. A spirit... but with a body."

"You mean he's another abomination?"

"No, he's not like Justice and me... that body, it's yours, isn't it?" he asked the boy.

The boy looked down at himself as if checking. "Yes." A pause. "So is the hat."

"How did you...?" Anders pushed the hood he was hiding under back, templars be damned. "I didn't know spirits could do that. _We_ didn't know."

"I wanted to help. Pain, pulsing, paralysing, pushing away everything else. I see him, sorrowful, suffering, screaming in silence, so I push through." The boy's voice took on a strange cadence, almost like a heartbeat. "I tried to make it better, to help, but... I could go through, but he couldn't. They left him there, and I couldn't get him out."

Anders blinked.

"The boy's a lacksense," Fenris said with a disgusted grunt, letting the point of his sword drop.

"He's not a boy, not really," Anders told him, before turning back to the spirit-with-a-body. "If I understood that correctly, you came through the Veil to help someone who was trapped?"

"Yes," the spirit boy said. Anders couldn't really see his expression between the lank, blond hair hanging over the boy's face and the overly large hat, but he felt a wave of approval coming from the boy at being understood. "Templars caught him and threw him in the dark." He cocked his head to the side, observing Anders. "Like they did you, but they didn't forget you, not forever. I'm glad they didn't."

"Templars... starved a mage to death? Those bastards! Was it here? In the redoubt over there?" He waved an arm in the general direction of Therinfal.

"Calm down, mage," Fenris growled. "I meant what I said about knocking you out."

Giddy whined, and the boy shook his head. "Not here. At the Spire. It was... a while ago. Before I knew what I was." He paused. "I'm Cole."

"I'm Anders." He paused, ignored Fenris who was no doubt pissed off Anders had just used his real name, and then added, "and I'm also Justice. The grouchy elf is Fenris and the dog is Gwydion. What is it you know that you are, Cole?"

"A demon," Cole said bluntly. "Or... I was. I don't want to be. Demons hurt people. I don't want to hurt. I want to help. That's why I came here, so the templars would stop me if I hurt anyone." He frowned. "But someone is hurting _them_. Making them red inside."

"They were already red inside, demon," Fenris said, raising his sword again.

"Who needs to calm down now?" Anders asked crossly. "This isn't a demon. I'd know if it was." He turned back to Cole. "Who's hurting them?" And could he join in?

"The Lord Seeker who isn't. He feeds them the red for the Elder One." His voice took on that eerie cadence again. "Daggers under the skin. It eats you inside until you're nothing. They hear a different song. The song behind the door old whispers want opened. They are dead and dark and done."

Okay, so maybe he didn't want to join in.

"Who's this Elder One?" Fenris demanded.

"You know him," Cole said. "He knows you." He paused as if listening to something and slipped back into that cadence. "Conscious. Confused. Confronted. This is not the world I remember. I will make it remember." He looked straight at them for the first time. "He wants the Hawke."

That made all three of them straighten up in a hurry. "Well, he can't have him!" Anders said fiercely, and Giddy barked in agreement. "How does he know us in the first place? Do you know?"

"Because of the blood," Cole said. "Hawke's blood. But that was before. That's not why he wants Hawke now. Hawke stole his mages. He's very angry he stole his mages. And... something else."

"Not Hawke's blood again. Can't these idiots get hooked on someone else's?" Fenris asked.

"I'm not sure it's 'again' exactly," Anders said slowly, putting two and two together to make something very unpleasant indeed. "But we killed him... didn't we?"

"If you're thinking about that insane darkspawn in the warden prison," Fenris said, "there was no getting up from what we left of him."

"It's just..." Anders started.

Fenris glared at him. "What is it, mage?"

"Nothing," Anders said and looked away. "It's just... he might not be as dead as we thought."

Cole suddenly turned his head sharply to look in the direction of Therinfal, his posture reminding Anders of Giddy when he sensed something. "You have to go. Now. They're coming."

" _Kaffas!_ Come on." Fenris grabbed Anders' arm and started hauling him off.

"Cole, come with us!" Anders called out over his shoulder, unwilling to end such a deeply interesting encounter.

"They're too close," Cole said. "Go. I will trick their tracking, lure them astray so you can fly free." He stood on the branch, two daggers suddenly appearing in his hands. "Go. Keep the Hawke safe."

They ran.

***

Dorian had never worked such a complicated spell as fast as he just had. He suspected no one had, and he was still buzzing with the success of it all when the great hall solidified around them looking exactly like it had before they'd made their little jaunt through time.

"You'll have to do better than that," he said to Alexius – _still alive!_ – unable to keep a little smirk of triumph off his face as he did so. Bad form, he knew, but sometimes he just couldn't help himself.

Alexius fell to his knees, looking utterly defeated. Felix, whole and at least with the appearance of healthy, looked uncertainly between his father and Dorian.

"Let's... never do that again," Varric said, pointing his crossbow at Alexius.

"Agreed," Hawke said. He stepped closer to Alexius. "Are we done here or does Varric get to turn you into a pincushion?"

"You've won," Alexius said with a heavy sigh. "There is no point extending this charade." He looked sadly at his son. "Felix..."

Felix crouched down beside him. "It's going to be all right, Father."

Alexius shook his head, his voice breaking as he said, "You'll die."

"Everyone dies," Felix told him. Alexius bowed his head and said nothing more.

"I guess we better haul him down to the village and hand him over to the Inquisition people there," Varric said. He nodded to the side where Fiona was standing. "What about her?"

"Oh, I think we have a lot to talk about now, don't we, First Enchanter?" Hawke said, and the grin he turned on her was far more challenging than friendly.

After a few minutes of conferring, Cassandra and Solas were leading Alexius out, Cassandra having done something... templary to Alexius to temporarily muffle his powers. Felix went with them, and Dorian was tempted to as well, but his curiosity about what exactly Hawke was going to do next kept him behind instead.

Fiona was looking very uncertain. "Herald. We never intended..."

Hawke sighed. "If you knew how many conversations I've had that have started with 'we never intended...' Intended to or not, you almost sold your people – and the whole world for that matter – into a future full of nothing but horror."

She winced. "Your clothes. They didn't look like that before Magister Alexius cast that time spell. Where... were you in the future?"

"A year in the future, to be exact," Varric said, "and if you want to know what it was like, think of the worst thing you can think of and know that this was a hundred times worse than that."

She looked down. "I realise now, he was never going to honour our agreement."

"It rather scares me that you ever thought he was going to," Dorian couldn't help but put in. "Or that it was an agreement you'd want kept. What part of ten years of servitude for all your people seemed like a good idea? I would've thought you lot would've had your fill of that in the southern circles, dingy little mage prisons that they were." He paused when he noticed Hawke staring at him with a raised eyebrow and held up his hands. "Sorry. Not my position to say anything. Carry on."

Hawke sighed and took a few seconds to regroup. "He's not wrong."

"What choice did we have?" Fiona asked. "The templars were winning. We had nowhere else to go."

Dorian saw Hawke wince a little at that. "You do now. Conceivably." Hawke paused. "If I offered the Inquisition's protection to the free mages in exchange for their help in saving the world, what would your answer be?"

"You would do that?" She took a breath. "It seems we have little choice but to accept whatever you offer."

Hawke's expression softened a little at that. "You know who I am, Fiona. You know what I've done. I'm not about to try and take away the freedom of any reasonable mage. The Inquisition can definitely use any assistance your mages can give, but only from the ones who choose to. Regardless of assistance or not, you will have our protection. I give you my word."

"We will help," Fiona said more firmly. "Those that can. We number in hundreds, but not all are battle ready."

"What about the Tranquil?" Varric asked, an edge to his voice.

"Uh..." Fiona looked between him and Hawke. "We have a few in our number. Most did not want to rebel."

"And where were they supposed to go when you closed down the circle towers?" Varric asked.

"There is a locked hut down in the village, Fiona," Hawke said. "Full of the skulls of Tranquil that Alexius had ritually killed. What Varric is really asking, what we all are asking, is have you even noticed them going missing?"

"I... No, why would he do that? What..." Fiona looked decidedly distressed. "How many? We thought they were just finding quiet places to hide from the conflict."

"That didn't seem awfully convenient to you?" Dorian wondered. After what he'd seen in the future, the fate of those Tranquil did not seem as shocking to Dorian as it first had, but it was still upsetting. "Tranquil are not really known for having an excessive sense of self-preservation."

"Quite the opposite really," Hawke agreed. "I know as a mage, dealing with Tranquil can be... disturbing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have been looking after them. Not when the templars had already made it so they couldn't look after themselves."

"You are right." Fiona hung her head. "I don't know what to say. Some of the ones we assumed hiding were once good friends of mine before... Before so much."

Hawke sighed and ran a hand over his face tiredly. "We'll see to it that their remains receive a proper cremation. Just... when you're organising your people to come to Haven, make sure you don't forget them."

"Of course." She bowed her head in acquiescence.

"Well, now that that's taken care of," Dorian said, when it was clear no one else was going to say anything. "I thought that I might tag along with you lot, at least for a while." He looked back and forth between Varric and Hawke. "If there's no objections?"

"None here," Varric said with a grin. "After all, if not for you, we wouldn't _be_ here. Or at least, not precisely."

"What the dwarf said," Hawke added. "We owe you a lot, getting us out of there."

"Oh, I'm sure it's nothing that the next brilliant, gifted, highly skilled mage wouldn't do," Dorian replied, waving off the sincere gratitude before his pleased embarrassment could show.

"Still," Hawke said, giving him a knowing look and a smile. "Can't hurt to keep you around just in case."

Dorian returned the smile. "Just in case."

***

Days later, Dorian wrapped his borrowed cloak tighter around his body and tried to remind himself that he'd volunteered for this.

Damn southern geography. Who thought it was a good idea to start an organisation in a tiny village in the middle of snow-covered mountains? He felt like he was one good gust of wind away from freezing solid. His suffering was made all the worse by the fact that his companions didn't seem to be much bothered by the cold at all.

"Maybe we can get someone to make you a set of robes with, you know, two shoulders," Varric said with what Dorian would definitely describe as an evil grin. Clearly Dorian had not been as subtle as he thought about his suffering. "Did you run out of gold before you could pay for a whole one?"

"Frees my arm up for casting," Dorian explained as haughtily as he could. "I'd ask why you aren't cold, but the answer's rather obvious. I probably wouldn't be cold either if I had the equivalent of a bear pelt growing on my chest."

"Ah," Varric said, adding a wink to his grin. "What can I say? The ladies love the chest hair."

"I can't imagine why," Cassandra said haughtily.

Varric was undaunted. He sketched an elaborate bow at her. "Scoff all you want, Seeker. I know what I know."

"I can't actually remember all that many ladies back in Kirkwall," Hawke put in. "What with your heart belonging to Bianca there and all."

"Bianca is why I wear my shirts open, Hawke. Otherwise I'd be depriving so many who'd never get to see this any other way."

Cassandra made what was becoming to Dorian a very familiar noise, and Solas chuckled.

Hawke just rolled his eyes and addressed Dorian directly. "You only have to hold out a little longer. We're nearly at Haven."

"I suppose it's too much to hope for a warm bath when we get there."

"Probably," Hawke said, surprising Dorian by throwing a companionable arm over his shoulders. "There should be warm blankets at least. And fires. Lots of warm fires. If there isn't any we can start one. How does that sound?"

"Positively barbaric," Dorian answered cheerfully. "But better than freezing to death, I admit."

He wasn't going to admit that he was already feeling warmer from Hawke's proximity and not just from shared body heat. Dorian would have had to be blind to miss out on just how attractive the other man was. Sadly, if there was one thing he'd come out of that awful trip to the future with, it was the knowledge that Hawke was already spoken for. Probably for the best, really. No one needed the evil mage from Tevinter hitting on the Herald of Andraste, after all.

He looked back down the icy trail, thinking he'd heard something. Ah, yes. "Don't look now. There's another of those vicious wild mutts after us."

"This far up the mountain?" Varric said, turning to look. "Unlikely to be feral, this one will be obeying orders."

Hawke turned to look, his face breaking out into the biggest grin Dorian had yet to see from the man. "Or disobeying orders, more likely," he said. "He never was very good at 'stay'." He then gave a piercing whistle. Dorian saw the distant beast pause, ears perking up before it started at a full run directly towards them.

"Hawke," Cassandra said, sounding strained. "What would your dog be doing here?"

"More to the point, if he's here..." Varric started, but didn't finish, instead scrambling up a nearby rock to get a better view.

The dog barrelled through the snow ridiculously fast. As it got closer, Dorian realised just how big it was. It didn't even slow down as it reached them, instead leaping up at Hawke as if it expected to be caught.

Dorian caught a slight noise from Solas, and when he looked round he saw Solas backing away with a look of distaste. He himself took a step back just in case, but Hawke just reached out his arms and caught the monster of a dog, stumbling back a little under its weight, but laughing out loud as he did so.

"Who's a good boy?" Hawke practically cooed at it while it slobbered disgustingly all over his face. Dorian discovered he was very much not a dog person.

"Hawke," Varric said, strangely intent. "Look!" He indicated back the way they'd come.

Dorian looked... and saw two figures roughly where he'd first seen the dog.

"Champion!" Cassandra did not sound pleased. "Tell me that isn't who I think it is."

Hawke didn't answer her, just stood and stared at the approaching figures with the most hungry, hopeful expression Dorian had ever seen. He realised why as the figures got close enough for him to make out their features, and he recognised them though they had been much more worse for wear when he'd seen them last.

The mage – Anders – seemed to be finding the snow hard-going, but if anything he sped up as they came closer, slipping and half-stumbling. "Hawke!" he called out. "Are you all right, love?"

"Maker, preserve us," Cassandra said and started to pace.

Hawke made a noise in his throat that could've been a muffled laugh or just as easily a muffled sob, and then he was finally in motion, closing the distance between him and Anders, throwing himself at the other mage much like the dog had at him moments before.

"He didn't tell you, huh?" Varric, down from his perch, asked Cassandra quietly, but her only answer was a growl.

Meanwhile Anders had grabbed Hawke's face with both hands and seemed to be trying to eat it with just his lips. The dog danced around the pair, barking happily.

Fenris, who hadn't bothered to speed up, now arrived. He looked briefly around, settled his gaze on Varric, and said, "Dwarf."

Dorian was still staring at Hawke and Anders' reunion even though it felt wrong to be watching something so intimate. But to see two men so openly caring about each other... It was everything Dorian wanted for himself, and everything that he'd been told repeatedly just wasn't possible. Doing his best to ignore the sudden ache in his chest, he pulled his gaze away from the reuniting lovers with an effort of will and focused on the elf instead.

Fenris did not look so much different from the one Dorian had met in the future, save for the lyrium markings on his skin. These were a brilliant blue white in colour, and Dorian could feel the pure icy power they contained even while dormant.

"Everyone, meet Fenris," Varric said. "Fenris, this is Dorian, Cassandra Pentaghast, and over there, Solas. Be nice." Dorian wondered if Varric had missed his family name off deliberately or if, in his mind, mages only ever had the one name.

"Isn't she the one who abducted you?" Fenris asked, looking askance at Cassandra.

"Yeah, but try not to hold it against her. She couldn't help it. The chest hair seduced her."

"I did n–" Cassandra gave up talking and pretty much snarled at the dwarf.

Fenris glanced at Dorian, then Solas, then Dorian again, looking him up and down. He turned back to Varric with a sneer on his face. "More mages?"

"Try not to hold it against them either, Broody. They're good folk."

"They are," Hawke agreed as he and Anders joined them, Hawke's arm still around Anders' waist. "Both of them have saved my life now so try to keep the hostility down to just growling at them." Addressing the group at large, he said, "I'm sure you've all guessed who this is by now, but just in case, this is Anders. Anyone tries to hurt him, I set them on fire." His gaze settled on Cassandra. "Clear?"

"Have you lost your mind?" she asked. "Not only have you offered the mages a free alliance, but you've now brought _him_ here? And you expect people to trust the Inquisition?"

"You did, love?" Anders seemed to perk up at Cassandra's words. "That's... uh, what exactly is the Inquisition these days?"

"A force for good if I have anything to say about it," Hawke said, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. "Which I do because of this." He held up his left hand, showing off the glowing mark there. He focused on Cassandra again. "You can try to kick Anders out if you want, but I and my magic rift-closing hand go with him."

"You would do that?" Cassandra said weakly. "You would doom the world for the sake of one man? I thought you were..." She turned away and started walking up the track.

Anders grabbed Hawke's wrist. "Love? We heard something about you and these Fade rifts we've been seeing, but what _is_ that?"

Hawke shrugged. "Damned if I know. It was there when I woke up after the world exploded. And I, uh... walked out of the Fade. Apparently."

"More like fell out," Varric said with a snort. "The mark closes rifts, Blondie, the only thing that can. We're hoping it can close the Breach too."

Anders, still holding Hawke's wrist, ran his thumb over the marked palm, looked fascinated. "Justice seems to like it. A lot."

"Really?" Dorian said, adding that to the information he had about the mark. Which so far, in spite of his best efforts and many questions asked on the journey, still amounted to 'not much'. "Does he say how it feels to him? Can he sense it beyond how a mage can?"

"How would I know?" Anders asked with a laugh. "Introductions, Hawke. Who is this rather too good-looking mage you're hanging around with while I'm not here?"

"He's Tevinter scum," Fenris said, sneering at Dorian, his lyrium tattoos starting to glow.

"Calm down, Broody," Varric said, actually stepping in front of Dorian. "He's not a magister. He has no slaves. He doesn't do blood magic. He's on our side."

"Varric's right," Hawke said, moving away from Anders to place himself bodily between Fenris and Dorian. "Varric and I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for Dorian."

Given what Varric had told him of Fenris' past, coupled with what he remembered hearing about Danarius and his experiments, Dorian wasn't surprised at the elf's reaction to him. Slightly intimidated, he was willing to admit to; he'd seen the carnage the Fenris in the future had wrought, after all, but not surprised.

"Dorian of House Pavus," he said, stopping short of a formal bow. He didn't think that would go over well. "Altus, in the interest of full disclosure. Your friends are right though in that I am most thoroughly on your side."

"I doubt that," Fenris growled, but he backed off, and his tattoos stopped glowing. "I also find it hard to believe House Pavus has no slaves now. They used to. What are you doing here?"

"There were familial... disagreements," Dorian said carefully. He supposed all the anger and fear, pain and disappointment could be summed up so. "I chose to leave."

The grunt Fenris made was presumably meant to be a reply, but he didn't turn away from Dorian, instead seemed to be watching him with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Right," Anders said. "Now that little drama is over, can we talk? And by the way – Dorian is it? – best to get used to being battered with the huge chip from Fenris' shoulder; I've certainly had to. It helps to imagine he's not there."

"I fear you have a better imagination than I," Dorian replied, turning to face Anders, but looking back at the elf with his next words. "However, I will endeavour to do so... if that is what would make you most comfortable, Fenris. You have suffered more than enough at the hands of those of my class. I would rather not add to that, if possible."

"No, I would not like to be ignored," Fenris said, sounding scathing, but Dorian felt he probably wasn't the target for it, despite the fact that Fenris was still staring at him. "Ignored is what slaves are, until they're needed for some fetching or carrying. Or escorting of wilful abominations."

"I'll stop pretending you're not there when you stop wishing me dead," Anders said with a sour tone, but then he turned back to Hawke and seem to cheer up. "Maybe we can now be told why the urgent summons, especially when it was so important we kept away from here earlier."

"Not 'we', mage," Fenris said. "You were the only one kept away from Haven, and you know exactly why."

"I'm sorry," Hawke said. "I'm here because I don't have any real choice in the matter, and you're here because I can't do this without you." His gaze sought out Fenris'. " _Both_ of you. It's a long story, but the last time I saw you, you were dead. I think if that actually happened it would destroy me. So it's stupid and selfish and probably the worst thing I could ever ask, but I need to know you're both still... _here_. I need you with me."

"Love," Anders said, taking Hawke's hand again, "I think the one thing Fenris and I can agree on is that we're glad to be here. We've been worried, but you're going to have to explain that 'dead' thing. A dream?"

Hawke grimaced. "That too, but this was real. Or it was potentially real, I guess."

"Time magic," Dorian put in, knowing it was easier for him to talk about than the others. However horrible that future had seemed to him, it had very obviously been worse for Hawke and Varric both, but especially Hawke. "A misfired Venatori spell sent us a year into the future. It wasn't pretty."

Anders made a noise of concern, his hands sparking blue with magic as he started to check Hawke over.

"Venatori," Fenris repeated slowly, looking at Dorian again. "Tevinter hunters?"

"A cult," Dorian replied. "Made up, I'm sad to say, of my countrymen who want to restore Tevinter to its so called past glory at the cost of burning down the present and future. In other words, people who definitely would deserve to have you rip out their hearts."

"It would be my pleasure," Fenris said, lip curling into half a smile.

"You haven't heard the worst of it," Varric put in. "You won't believe who's giving them orders."

"We might," Anders said, looking up. "If it's someone who's meant to be dead, anyway."

"Corypheus." Hawke stared at Anders intently, and even Dorian could sense the worry there. "You knew."

Anders seemed to twitch a little under the gaze. "We met a very interesting person on the way. Outside Therinfal redoubt, no less. He told us that Corypheus was having something poisonous and red fed to the templars for some reason. At least, that's my best interpretation of his riddles."

"I had... forgotten him," Fenris said, frowning. "Uh, he also said an 'Elder One' was very angry with you, Hawke, for stealing 'his' mages. That much didn't need interpretation."

"Good," Hawke said with some satisfaction. "He's been making me angry for a while now. I'm happy to return the favour." He glanced at Varric. "As for the rest, I think we can give you the answer to what is poisonous and red and can be fed to templars."

"Those poor bastards," Varric said, his face twisted. "He's having them fed red lyrium."

"Why would they do that?" Fenris asked. "Don't they know what happened to the Kirkwall Knight Commander?"

"If they know, they don't care, or they're not given a choice. Probably the last, considering what we saw in the future. Hawke, we're going to stop this, aren't we?" Varric asked earnestly. "We can't just let a whole redoubt be... crystallised."

"We won't," Hawke assured him. He took a deep breath and stood taller, straightening his shoulders. It was a posture Dorian recognized from Redcliffe, right before things started moving really fast and crazy. "It's going to take some planning though. I'm not going to be able to just walk up and ask them to let me in like at Redcliffe. I don't really have the same currency with templars as I have with mages."

"Quite the opposite, I imagine," Solas said as they all started walking again. He'd been so quiet that Dorian had assumed he'd followed Cassandra up the track earlier. "And while we now have the manpower to force an entrance, that would rather defeat the point of going there."

"Maybe Cole could help," Anders said. "If we could find him again. He was, hmm, very interesting and seemed to be on our side."

Fenris frowned, rubbing at his forehead as he walked. "He was... a demon?"

"No, I told you he wasn't," Anders said. "He was a spirit, like Justice. He'd made himself a body somehow."

"He did what?" Dorian asked disbelievingly. "I won't say it's impossible because the amount of impossible things I've been seeing seems to grow exponentially daily, but I at least have never heard of a spirit being able to do such a thing before."

"It... could happen," Solas said. "A spirit sufficiently determined could draw matter from the waking world and weave it around itself. I'd very much like to meet this 'Cole'. I wonder who named him; that's not a spirit title."

"Justice said he was a spirit of compassion," Anders offered as he clambered over a tree trunk blocking the path. "He called himself a demon, but he definitely wasn't one. Is that Haven?"

Ahead was a small frozen lake, and beyond it some kind of settlement with fortified wooden walls.

"That's Haven," Hawke confirmed though his attention wasn't on where they were going so much as on Fenris. He was eyeing the elf almost as worriedly as he'd been eyeing Anders earlier. "I'm concerned about how Fenris seems to be having trouble remembering this spirit. That doesn't seem like something that would just slip his mind."

Fenris managed a worried looking smile for Hawke. "I was hit on the head when protecting the mage from some templars outside Ostagar who refused to parley. Perhaps that...?"

"If you were hurt, you should have said," Anders rolled his eyes skywards. "I checked you over after the fight. You seemed fine."

"I don't _remember_ getting hit on the head," Fenris said, and then added more doubtfully, "but I wouldn't."

Anders moved closer to Fenris, his hands sparking blue again. He moved his hands over the elf's body, not touching, and surprisingly, Fenris let him, pausing on the track.

Hawke paused as well, watching all of this with, well, the eyes of a hawk. "Well?" he asked worriedly when the glow faded from Anders' hands, and he stepped back.

"He's fine," Anders said with a shrug. Ah, it seemed he was one of those rare treasures, a spirit healer. Not what Dorian had expected after meeting Vengeance in the future. Varric had explained a lot about the 'possession' on the way from Redcliffe, but hadn't mentioned that.

Fenris looked at Hawke, and he too shrugged. "I can remember the encounter with the demon now... although not what it looked like."

"He wasn't a demon," Anders corrected, sounding more patient now.

"Demon or not, I don't like the idea of it messing with people's memories. Especially those of Fenris." Hawke reached out and ruffled Fenris' hair affectionately. "I'm rather attached to the brooding, prickly version we have."

Fenris ducked away from the touch, prickly as described, but not before Dorian noticed a quickly suppressed little smile from the elf; he _liked_ Hawke's attention. There was a story here, about Hawke, Anders and Fenris, beyond that which Dorian already knew. Maybe he'd be able to get Varric to spill the beans, perhaps after a drink or two. Although why he cared, he wasn't sure.

He looked ahead as they started walking again, only to see, when they turned a slight corner, Cassandra sitting on a low rock, having a conversation with the giant hound. The human side of the conversation abruptly stopped when she saw them approaching.

"I'm glad to see you getting along with at least one member of my family," Hawke offered.

"He's a kind animal," she said, sounding subdued. "I thought we should arrive together. Josephine would not forgive me if I let people see conflict between us about this matter." She seemed to be doing her best to look everywhere but at Anders.

"Thank you for that." Hawke paused, looking up at the sky instead of at Cassandra as he continued. "I... may have been more confrontational than was required earlier. In case it's not clear, I'm not about to stop trying to save the world just because people don't like the man I love. But I'm not about to give him up, either."

"I... understand. Making peace with the Chantry may now be impossible, but perhaps that was never meant to be. Thank you, Hawke." She managed a rough smile. "For staying."

Varric moved towards her, offering a hand up. "It'll all work out, Seeker. You wait and see."

Hawke looked at him. "Since when did you turn into an optimist?"

"Hawke, do you think I'd hang around with you if I _wasn't_ an optimist?" Varric said with a laugh. "Sure, I hide it behind a handsome mask of worldly cynicism, but the storyteller in me always aims for that happy ever after."

Dorian saw Hawke's gaze flicker back and forth between Varric and Cassandra thoughtfully, then Hawke grinned and clapped the dwarf on the shoulder. "Well, if anyone can hit it, someone who shoots like you should be able to."

"Do we walk over it or around it," asked Fenris, staring out over the frozen lake.

"If we're taking a vote, I'd say around it," Dorian said. "Or at the very least, hitting the lake with an ice spell first. I have no desire to get halfway across and have it break out from under me."

"It won't break," Solas said. "I've seen loaded brontos led across it without even a crack appearing."

He was telling the truth, it seemed, as in no time they were across to the other side and walking up to an area where soldiers were being drilled. A good looking blond man in armour was standing there waiting for them, having seen them from afar. As they'd drawn closer, he'd folded his arms, and Dorian could now see he looked... displeased.

"Really?" the man said as they arrived before him.

"Come now, Cullen, you can't seriously have expected that they wouldn't show up here eventually," Hawke told him, his manner more pleasant than earlier, but still with that hint of steel underneath.

"No, I suppose that would have been too much to ask." The man – Cullen – rolled his eyes. "Some of your mages arrived earlier. You might want to talk to them, but not before a meeting with the advisors, please."

"Considering how well you're taking this, I suppose I owe you the chance to yell at me in private," Hawke acquiesced with a sigh. He turned to the rest of them, though most of his attention was on Anders and Fenris. "This shouldn't take too long." He glanced back over at Cullen then amended, "Or maybe it will. Varric can show you where the tavern is." He kissed Anders and squeezed Fenris' shoulder affectionately, fingertips brushing the side of his neck. "Try not to incite anything while I'm gone."

"You better come too, Sparkler," Varric said to Dorian. "Ferelden ale's not up to much, but it's better than their water."

"That sounds like saying that walking in ankle deep shit is better than walking in knee deep shit, but I suppose we take what we can get. I appreciate the invitation, nonetheless," Dorian replied, giving Varric a small bow.

***

Hawke escaped the war room after less yelling than he'd expected he'd have to endure, though he was putting that down to the information about Therinfal redoubt he'd just shared. It was harder to yell at him about the mages – or one mage in particular – when he was asking for help in coming up with a plan to save the templars.

And help they did, coming up with a plan to use the pressure of Orlesian nobility to force the templars to let them in. It sounded more than a bit daft to Hawke, but Leliana and Josephine both seemed confident in its success. He left the arrangements in their far more capable hands and took his leave before they could remember to start yelling at him again.

Once free, he made a beeline for the tavern to join the others, staying only long enough to let them know that plans were underway, then all but bodily pulling Anders out of the place. As much as he loved his friends, there was nothing he wanted more right now than some time alone with his lover.

"Miss me?" Anders said, laughing, but the smile fell from his face as he noticed a Chantry sister giving him a filthy look from across the path. "Ah, word's got around then."

"Somehow that still feels more comfortable than the positively worshipful looks I've been getting since they decided I'm the blasted Herald of Andraste." The Chantry sister was still frowning at them, so taking a page from Dorian's book, Hawke bowed extravagantly in her direction.

She seemed to cringe away from him before hurrying off towards the apothecary's

"Please tell me that title comes with a bed." Anders said. "Varric says he's stuck in a tent and I've had enough of roughing it. Anyway, a cloth doorway will make it a little too easy to attack me while I sleep."

"It comes with a whole cabin," Hawke said, sliding an arm around Anders' waist as he started them walking in that direction. "And don't worry too much about being attacked. The Inquisition spymaster has given me her word that she'll do everything she can to keep that from happening. You've met her – do you remember Lady Nightingale? Sister Leliana?"

"The Divine's agent, yes. Not an ally I would ever have expected. Are you really all right, love?"

He wasn't, not really, but that was nothing new. "I'm better, now that you're here," he said honestly. Where he could see him, touch him, know he was _alive_.

"You shouldn't have left me behind," Anders said as Hawke stopped them by his cabin. "I know why you did, but we're better together."

"If I had brought you with me when it happened, you would either be dead too, or they would've pinned the whole thing on you. So as much as I missed you, I'm glad you weren't." Hawke opened the cabin door and pulled Anders inside with him, turning to wrap his arms around him tightly. "That being said, you're right. We are better together. I'm not sending you away again."

"Good." Anders rested his head on Hawke's shoulders. "When rumours reached us about what had happened..."

"I'm sorry." He slid one hand up to untie Anders' hair, combing his fingers through it when it was free. "I sent word as soon as I was able, but I know it can't have been soon enough."

"Actually, we only had a day of not knowing, being in the middle of nowhere as we were. Unlike in Kirkwall, rumours spread a lot slower than quasi-official communiqués when you're miles from anywhere. That said, Fenris practically had to sit on me to stop me leaving the instant we heard anything." Anders chuckled softly, puffing air on Hawke's neck. "I had almost talked him around to my way of thinking when the 'don't panic, stay put' message arrived via a taciturn woman on horseback."

Hawke felt muscles that had been wound tight with worry for longer than he cared to admit, start to finally relax. "And how long between that and the arrival of the 'changed my mind, come here immediately' message?"

"Less than a day! Your ravens here are efficient." Anders laughed again and pulled back a little, just enough to look around the cabin. "Let's take off our boots and get comfy. I want to hear everything that's happened, and I..." He sighed. "I have something to tell you too, which you're not going to like much. _I_ don't like it much."

Of course there was something wrong. Beyond the world trying to end, he meant. There was _always_ something wrong, but the sense of incipient panic he'd been struggling with since that first horrible nightmare refused to reassert itself. Hawke was just too tired to panic now that Anders was finally within arm's reach.

So he did what Anders had requested, leaning his staff against the wall and shedding layers before settling on the bed with Anders wrapped tightly in his arms. They had lain together like this more times and in more places than Hawke could easily count, enough that it felt like home no matter where they were.

Anders took a long, deep sigh and settled closer still. "A month is too long apart. I started to let Giddy sleep on the bed because that made me feel at least a little closer to you."

Hawke chuckled softly. "Hopefully that's not a roundabout way of saying I smell like a mabari."

" _Anyone_ living with a mabari ends up smelling like one," Anders said with a chuckle of his own, running his hand over Hawke's chest. "So. Tell me everything from arriving at the Conclave."

"How about everything from when I woke up in chains with this thing on my hand and everyone blaming me for the hole in the sky?" Hawke countered, covering Anders' hand with his own. "Because there's a distinctive... gap before that."

"Hmm, all right." He could hear the concerned frown in Anders' voice.

Hawke told him about that first confrontation with Cassandra, finding out what happened and discovering that he could close the rifts. "And of course that's where I finally found Varric, in the thick of it, calmly shooting things with Bianca." He smiled wryly. "I was so happy to see a friendly face by that point, I almost kissed his ugly mug."

Anders' body had grown tense during the story. "And we're not deadly enemies with Cassandra why precisely?"

"She's not a bad person," Hawke defended. "Maybe has a bit too much of a hit first, ask questions later mentality, or hit first _while_ asking questions, but she's willing to admit when she's wrong. And to work with mages as equals, which is more than I could say for a lot of templar types."

"Talking of which, how was Cullen when behind closed doors? It was true, what you said. He should've known."

Hawke smiled a little. "I let him yell at me until he paused for breath and then I distracted him by bringing up what you told me about Therinfal. I expect there will be more yelling about it in our future, but I don't think it's going to go further than that." He laid a hand against Anders' cheek. "With everything that was happening, Kirkwall was always going to explode. Took me a while to be able to see that, but I did finally, in hindsight. Cullen was there, he knows what it was like. He'll get there too."

"You should show him the papers we found from the Band of Three – all that stuff about Kirkwall being 'built upon lakes of blood'." Anders laid his head back into the pillow. "I've been thinking about that a lot, love. That and what we found in the Warden Prison, about Kirkwall being shaped by malevolent force. I've felt so much clearer since we left. Well, until recently..."

Without consciously deciding to, Hawke pulled Anders closer. "The thing that you needed to tell me."

Anders wriggled. "Can't you tell me the rest of your story first? You haven't even got to Redcliffe yet."

"Anders." He shifted them around until they were both on their sides, foreheads touching, able to feel each other's breath on their faces. "The more you keep putting off telling me whatever it is, the worse I'm imagining it to be," he said softly, pleadingly. "You have no idea the kind of nightmares I've been having. Please... just say it."

Anders frowned deeply. "You're going to have to tell me about these nightmares." He sighed. "I'm hearing... the Calling. But–" he lifted a hand to place a finger on Hawke's lips "–before you panic, it's not real. I thought it was to start with, and that was a big steaming heap of not-fun-at-all, but with all we've found out... There's a familiar taint to it. It's coming, I'm almost certain, from Corypheus. I can all but hear him."

Hawke let out his breath in a long sigh. That... was not as bad as he had feared it was going to be. "I need to tell you about Redcliffe now and what happened in the future we saw," he said, and proceeded to lay out everything that had happened there as calmly and clearly as he could, keeping emotion out of his words. He almost succeeded until he got to the end and watching Anders disappear under a horde of demons, then his voice cracked, but he swallowed and continued. "The whole experience was just one long, unending horror, but something good's come out of it. We know that you and Justice working together can block Corypheus' influence and still let you be you because you did. At the end, even in the state you were in, you did."

"Justice kept me safe," Anders said, sounding pensive, which was more than understandable considering what he'd just heard. "Even when I was sure I just wanted to die, to give in to whatever fate awaited me because you were dead, he kept me safe, and when you came back, when you needed me, I could then be strong. Because of him."

"Yes." He caressed Anders' cheek, his fingers sliding back to comb through his hair again. "It's not just all one-sided, you know. He can block Corypheus' call, and you can keep him... _him_. I've seen that often enough since we left Kirkwall. You've got a lot better at reining him in when you need to."

"Sometimes I can't believe how you've stood by me, by _us_. Somehow, one day, I'm going to make it up to you. Live up to your faith in me."

"I don't need any grand gestures, you know that," Hawke told him, thinking of that future Anders and watching him fall, and of his nightmares. "Just... stay with me."

"Always." Anders moved up onto his elbow and looked down at Hawke. "What you went through in the future, it sounds appalling, love." He bent to briefly kiss him. "What do you need, right now? Tell me so I can give it to you."

"I wouldn't say no to a way to fix the sky," Hawke joked, before letting the humour fall away as he looked up at Anders. "I already have what I need," he said, running a finger down the length of Anders' nose, before lightly tracing his lips with the tip of a finger. "You. Here, with me."

"Well, I can't fix the sky, but I can offer a pretty good massage instead?" Anders said with a smile.

"Sold," Hawke said instantly, leaning up to press a kiss to Anders' lips. Anders' massages were the stuff of legend, even if he ignored how often they turned into other, more intimate pastimes. The man, after all, did have the healer's touch. When he worked at sore muscles, he applied more than just pressure.

"Roll over then, love," Anders murmured when the kiss was over. "Let me straighten out those kinks... only not all of them as I rather like you a little bit kinky."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which offers are made, and hearts somehow fail to be torn from chests...

Dorian wandered the dark streets, if such a word wasn't too grand for these worn, snow-covered paths of Haven. He shivered as another gust of wind cut through his clothes and thought wistfully of the comparative warmth and light of the tavern he'd left behind.

For all that Varric had made an effort to be welcoming and include him, it had been obvious to Dorian that, once Hawke had dragged Anders away, his presence was making things awkward in what should have been an evening of catching up between old friends. He had said as much when he took his leave, thanking the dwarf and ignoring as best he could the continued glaring from Fenris. Then he went to track down an old friend of his own.

He found Felix in the chantry, coming through a side door and looking troubled, although he brightened up somewhat when he saw Dorian, coming straight to him and smiling. "When did you arrive?"

"This afternoon. I would've tracked you down sooner, but I was dragged along to the tavern to sample some quaint southern spirits. And by 'quaint', I mean truly awful. I'm fairly sure I saw a spill eat the varnish right off the table. Dreadful stuff."

"And knowing you, you drank it all the same," Felix said with a small laugh. The reason the laugh was only small was quickly explained. "I've been visiting Father."

Dorian let his joking manner fall away at that. "How is he?"

"Broken, deluded... despairing," Felix looked down. "How could he ever think I'd want him to do what he keeps telling me he did for me?"

"He wasn't thinking about what you wanted so much as he was thinking about keeping you alive," Dorian said gently. He didn't want to paint Alexius in a worse light than the man already had by his own actions. Even with all that had happened, Dorian couldn't help but still care for him. "And that was just as much for him as for you. He can't accept losing you. I confess, as motivations go, that one I can at least understand."

"Selfish," Felix murmured, his eyes distant. "Putting his fear of loss before the fate of the whole world. Beyond selfish. He taught me so much better than that."

"We stopped him before he could do something irredeemable, at least," Dorian said, trying to be comforting, and then he winced when he remembered the hut with the Tranquil skulls that Hawke had told them about. But he continued doggedly on, wanting to take that defeated look from Felix's eyes. "At least you know he loves you."

"Is it love or possession?" Felix asked, but he shook himself, like he was trying to shift snow from his shoulders. "Do you know what the Inquisition plans to do with him?"

Dorian let out his breath in a long sigh. "No. I doubt any decisions have been made or will be soon. There's too much else they're dealing with. Like the fact that their Herald is almost certainly fucking the Chantry's Most Wanted at this very moment, after informing them that said Most Wanted would be staying." It was a lovely piece of gossip, and if anything could change the subject to something a little less depressing for them both, it was this.

"That explains several angry, whispered discussions that ended as soon as they noticed me noticing," Felix said, managing another smile. "And now, no one seems to be paying attention to the two Tevinter standing in the middle of this southern chantry. Truly bigger fish to... have to refrain from frying."

"Speaking of, have you eaten? Should we attempt to find the mess tent–" and what an appropriate term that was "–and brave the southern cuisine?" It was a probably not very subtle attempt at making sure Felix took care of himself as best he could. If Alexius was no longer in a position to look after Felix, then it was up to Dorian to do so, for as long as he could.

"I should..." Felix started, looking guiltily back at the door he'd come through. "No, you're right. It's not as if I was doing any good back there. I haven't eaten and I should. I have a condiments pouch in my packs, by the way."

"And suddenly my hopes for a meal have been raised beyond merely edible," Dorian exclaimed, slinging an arm over his friend's shoulders. "Felix, you are a treasure. Still sneaking me treats after all these years." He very deliberately stopped himself from wondering aloud what he was going to do without him. That moment would come too soon for him to even consider joking about it any more.

After fetching the condiments, they hummed and hawed over the choice of simple and really not appetising food before giving in and fairly literally opting for pot luck. They sat themselves at a small wooden table, and for a while were silent as they shovelled in mouthfuls of a nondescript brown gruel made bearable with liberal application of Tevinter spice. Or at least Dorian was shovelling; Felix was more pushing it around with a spoon while watching Dorian's appetite with amusement.

"You must really have left in a hurry to forget to pack spices," Felix said eventually.

Dorian flashed back to the night he had left, and the mad, frantic scramble about his rooms to pack what he could as fast as he could, heart racing with fear and anger and the overwhelming knowledge that he had to _get out immediately_ if he wanted to remain himself. "You could say that," he said as airily as he could manage. "It was all such a whirlwind, I'm surprised I remembered to pack extra smallclothes."

Felix gave him a look full of sympathy. "Fathers," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Maybe it's for the best neither of us will ever be one."

As good as he was at maintaining a front, Dorian felt it slip at that. He swallowed hard against the sudden lump in his throat that had nothing to do with the gruel he was eating. "Felix–"

"Just the two mages I was looking for."

Dorian looked up to see a smiling Hawke standing beside their table, holding two covered dishes. Shaking off the emotional upheaval of his conversation with Felix as best he could, he arched an eyebrow at Hawke and asked, "Should we be worried?"

"Ordinarily, given the looks my friends started to give me when I greeted them that way back in Kirkwall, I'd say yes, absolutely, but not this time. Anders and I have something we need to talk to you about. Now, if you're free...?"

"Of course," Felix said, standing. Looking at him, Dorian gained the distinct impression that he was expecting something unpleasant.

Apparently he wasn't the only one who saw it because Hawke frowned a little and said, "You did get the part where I said you didn't have to worry, right?"

"If it's all the same to you, Hawke, we will worry anyway," Dorian said as he stood as well. "It's become something of a habit lately. Just to be prepared."

"Quite," Felix agreed. He looked at Hawke's dishes. "Should we bring our food?"

"Yes. Then I won't feel guilty about pulling you away from your meal only to eat in front of you."

They gathered up their plates and followed Hawke a short distance through the paths to a small cabin. "Back with food and company!" Hawke announced as he opened the door and stepped inside, then holding it for Dorian and Felix to enter after him into a tiny lobby area.

"Wait!" A call came from the larger of the two rooms. "Give me a chance to get decent at least!"

Felix laughed. "It seems you were right, Dorian."

"Given the look of intent on both their faces when this one dragged that one out of the tavern, it was fairly obvious," Dorian replied, easily.

"Damn right there was intent," Hawke said bluntly enough, though Dorian noticed his face going a bit red. "It was a long separation."

"You'll get no judgement from this corner," Dorian assured him. "Or at least what judgement there is is very much positive. So very positive that we can always go, if we're getting in the way of a second round...?"

"No need," Anders said, appearing at the doorway in a loose shirt and breeches. "Everything is covered up that should be, and I at least need to eat before any uncovering happens again. Come on in."

"This is a discussion we all should really have sooner than later, anyway," Hawke put in, following Anders into the room and handing one of the plates to him. "This is Dorian's friend Felix that I was telling you about. Felix, Anders."

Dorian felt his eyebrows go up in surprise. "You were talking about Felix?"

"Yes," Anders said, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

"Uh, why?" Felix asked, looking worriedly around the three other men.

Anders let his hand drop. "Hawke told me what happened to you, why you're... ill. We might be able to help you. Note the word 'might'. It's a big, important one. What we're offering will give you a fifty/fifty chance at best and, even if it works, change the course of your life completely."

"What?" Dorian knew he was staring at Hawke and Anders with his mouth hanging open like an idiot, but he felt he was justified. That was the last thing he had expected to hear. "Are you serious?"

Felix was staring fixedly at Anders. "Are you offering what I think you are?"

"Probably," Anders said with a shrug. "Unless you're thinking about licorice. I try not to think about that. Or broodmothers." He gave a theatrical shiver. "Or worse still, licorice broodmothers. Seriously, why would you be thinking about that? Revolting."

"Anders," Hawke chided, though the amount of affection he put into the name took away any sting the rebuke may have held. He turned to Felix. "Ten years ago, my little brother caught the Blight when we were in the Deep Roads. Anders helped us get him to some Grey Wardens that were nearby, and they saved his life."

Dorian felt a strange surge of an unfamiliar feeling. Hope. "So there is a cure...?"

Felix seemed bewildered. "I could... become a Grey Warden?"

"If you survive the joining ritual," Anders said dryly. "I did mention the fifty/fifty? And it's a hardly a cure, more a delaying tactic. But if you're lucky, the delay can be decades."

"Not to mention," Hawke put in, "that with Corypheus out there, this is probably the worst possible time to join the Wardens. So even if you survive the Joining, it might just be setting you up for an even worse fate. But..." Here his expression softened. "It's a chance."

"I... don't know what to say." Felix turned to look beseechingly at Dorian, as if he had all the answers.

Dorian didn't, far from it, but he reached for Felix's plate and set both it and his own down before taking his friend's hands in his own. "I know you've come to terms with what we both thought was inevitable, but if there's a chance..." He stopped himself with a shake of his head. He was not going to be Alexius and force what he wanted on Felix, but... "This has to be your decision, Felix, and I will respect whatever choice you make, but I can't help but hope that I'll get to keep my best friend, after all."

Felix turned back to Hawke. "Okay, then." He smiled. "I have nothing to lose by saying yes that I wasn't losing anyway and a lot to gain. If you're sure they'll have me?"

"I managed to persuade them to take Carver of all people," Anders said. "After that, selling them the prospect of you as a warden should be as easy as an apprentice cantrip." He pulled a wry face and added, "That said, Carver's proven to be a far better warden than I ever was, so we'll call on his influence, not mine."

"Thank you," Dorian told them both, trying to impart exactly what this meant to him into two little words. "Whatever you may want from me, now or in the future, it is yours."

"Save that gratitude until he survives the ritual," Anders said, heading for the bed with his bowl. "I think you might just make it though, Felix. I've got a good warden-y feeling about you."

"Thanks," Felix said. "I think."

"So," Hawke said, "are the two of you... involved?"

Dorian stopped short at the question.

"Uh, no?" Felix gave Hawke one of his patented 'did you really just say that?' look.

"I would never take advantage of my mentor's good will by seducing his son," Dorian protested. "I may be a bad man, but I would never pull Felix down with me." He could handle people saying things about himself, but he would let association with him bring that kind of trouble to Felix. Maker, as if Felix didn't have enough trouble of his own to deal with.

"What's so bad about you?" Anders asked casually between mouthfuls from where he was lounging on the bed. "Anything fun?"

Dorian opened and closed his mouth a few times before finding his voice. When had the conversation got away from him? "I... that is... Most people would say that being an evil mage from Tevinter was bad enough."

"We're not most people," Hawke pointed out. He was still looking back and forth between him and Felix as if trying to figure out what he had done to elicit this reaction. "And you've done a pretty terrible job at being evil so far."

"We're all evil mages here," Anders said, raising his spoon to gesture with. "Or so the Chantry would have you believe. Especially me." He made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Well, they might have a point about me."

"Less evil and more made a few bad decisions when all the possible decisions were bad," Hawke corrected, moving to sit beside Anders.

"I doubt they'd agree with you, love," Anders said peaceably. "This stew is bloody awful, by the way." He ladled another spoonful into his mouth and then gestured with the spoon while he was chewing. Indicating, Dorian thought, that they should sit at the small table nearby although there was only one chair.

"I didn't cook it," Hawke told him as Dorian took the seat in question, hopeful that the topic would keep moving away from his own bad deeds. "I'll kill rampaging Qunari, free the mages, close Fade rifts and save the world, but I draw the line at cooking."

"And thank the Maker for that," Anders said after finishing his 'bloody awful' stew by drinking from the bowl. "The world can survive many things, love, but you in a kitchen isn't one of them."

Felix laughed at that, but Dorian hadn't been able to help but notice the concerned looks Felix had been sending his way.

"Everyone has to have their flaws," Hawke said airily as he casually nudged his own bowl towards Anders. "Anders blew up a chantry, and I can't cook." He gave Dorian an expectant look.

So much for hoping that they would just drop it. Dorian considered briefly lying or just refusing to answer, but with what they were offering to do for Felix, that seemed the height of ingratitude. Not to mention, he thought as he watched how comfortable they were in each other's space, he was hardly ever going to get a more potentially receptive audience. "I prefer the company of men," he finally blurted out.

They just stared at him. Finally Anders prompted, "And...?"

"This isn't Minrathous, Dorian," Felix said quietly.

"I'm well aware of that!" he snapped and then felt immediately guilty. "Sorry," he said to Felix. "That was unworthy. This is all just so..."

"Who you sleep with is that big a concern in Tevinter?" Hawke asked tentatively, looking like he was finding the very concept difficult to understand.

"But Fenris..." Anders started, but then stopped, looking uncomfortable. "It's okay so long as it's only with slaves, is that it?"

Dorian made a face of distaste. "I have never been with anyone who wasn't willing," he stated, wanting to make that clear. "But yes, all sorts of deviant behaviours are tolerated as long as you keep them hidden."

"And loving men is considered... deviant?" Anders moved his feet to the floor and sat up so he could look at Dorian. "Fenris used to tell me I should go to Tevinter; that I'd be happy there. Turns out that's the complete balls I'd always thought it, isn't it?"

"It's more just the..." Dorian trailed off with a sigh, gathered his thoughts and tried again. "Every Tevinter family carefully intermarries to try to distil the perfect mage: perfect body, perfect mind. The perfect leader. It means every perceived flaw, every aberration, is deviant and shameful. It must be hidden."

"We are more than just sons," Felix put in, sounding sad. "We're investments. Our whole family's future rests upon us."

Dorian snorted inelegantly. "And Maker help you if you fail to pay off," he said bitterly.

"I'm starting to understand why you both looked like I asked if you did it with farm animals when I asked if you were together," Hawke said slowly. "I apologise if I made things uncomfortable."

Dorian waved the apology off with an imperious gesture. "My discomfort is not your responsibility. You had no idea you were touching on an issue that is still.. raw to me."

"There's always something, isn't there?" Anders said, looking cross. "Wherever you go, there's always some bunch of idiots telling you that whatever you are, it's wrong."

The anger on their behalf went a long way to soothe any lingering discomfort Dorian still had. "One thing the world will never be short of is idiots, more's the pity. They are easy to dismiss. The hard part is when their opinions become so entrenched that smart people don't think to question them either."

"That's when you have to blow up a chantry or two," Anders said, looking at the ceiling. "All sorts of questions get asked then. Such as 'what in the Void were you thinking?' and 'why are you still alive?'"

"Please don't offer to blow up anything in Tevinter," Hawke told him. "We have a hard enough time keeping Fenris' attempts at a one-elf war on slavery from getting out of hand as it is."

"Well, you do attract people to you who feel strongly about things, love. We all want you on our side, righting wrongs and giving our causes respectability. Something like that." Anders turned to Dorian and Felix. "So what cause do you two follow?"

Dorian blinked. "At the moment, keeping my idiot countrymen from helping to destroy the world seems to be a good way of occupying my time," he said.

"Well," Felix started slowly, "I _was_ going to head home and use my status as de facto head of my house to speak to the Magisterium, see if I could change at least one mind before I die. But now... I suppose my new cause should be killing darkspawn. Fitting, really. I owe them for Mother. Father too, in a way."

"The Wardens are going to be lucky to have you," Dorian told him, trying to picture Felix as one, doing what wardens did. It was surprisingly easy when the alternative was to picture him not here at all.

Felix smiled.

"And don't forget," Anders said, "you can always run away if you don't enjoy it. You'll always be a warden, but you don't have to be _with_ the Wardens. Most of them are decent, but some take your cat away."

Dorian was becoming quite certain Anders did that deliberately – used bewildering non sequiturs as a kind of verbal sleight of hand.

Hawke rolled his eyes, but the affection in the look he gave Anders belied any exasperation he was pretending to. When he spoke it was to Dorian. "You'll be staying with us then? You don't have to – we'll understand if you want to go with Felix. That was why I asked about the two of you."

 _Oh_. That was... exceedingly kind, actually, to have someone care enough to not want to separate him from his non-existent lover. "I thought I might hang about still, yes," he answered. "Stopping the end of the world seems like a cause anyone should be able to get behind." He hesitated then and looked at Felix. "Unless you would rather I..."

"No," Felix said, reaching out to squeeze Dorian's wrist. "You're needed here. What if Father has taught others time magic? You're the only expert the Inquisition has."

"That's true." He turned back to Hawke. "I hereby officially put all my expertise at the Inquisition's disposal. Along with my considerable skills, wit and dashing good looks."

"Don't forget his modesty too," Anders said to Hawke. "He's got loads of that."

"Speaking in whatever official capacity I have, which we still haven't fully worked out, the Inquisition would be honoured to have such a humble individual added to its ranks," Hawke said, not even trying to hide his teasing grin. "Welcome aboard."

***

"Hey! Connor!" Varric trotted after the lad as he headed down towards the Haven gates. "Wait up!"

Connor paused and turned around, waiting, for Varric to catch up and catch his breath.

"I've been looking around for you, kid. I'd begun to think you hadn't made it here. No one seemed to have seen you." Varric grinned. "You keep an impressively low profile, don't you?"

"When you're me, that's for the best," Connor replied, frowning, but not, Varric thought, at him.

"Is it?" Varric asked, frowning too. "You still get grief for something that happened when you were a possessed child?"

"Sometimes." Connor shrugged.

"Even from your fellow mages?"

"They're the worst, and I don't blame them. It cost a fortune in lyrium and the Hero of Ferelden to kill the demon inside me. They know that, were they to get possessed, no one would do that for them. The templars would just kill them or make them tranquil. It isn't fair."

"Life's not fair," Varric told him, hating the way the boy seemed to willingly shoulder such a huge burden of guilt and self hate. "So if you're given a second chance, by fate, or the Maker, or, I don't know, the Hero of Ferelden, you've got to grab it with both hands."

"Speaking of things you need to grab with both hands," Hawke's familiar voice warned from behind them seconds before Gwydion romped between them, almost knocking Varric over in his enthusiasm. "Mabari coming through!"

"I hope you like dogs," Varric said to Connor with an apologetic glance for having to grab his arm to stay upright. "Bianca does, but I'm not so sure." He stuck his tongue out at the over-boisterous hound. For an old dog, he still had far too much bounce in him.

"You taught him how to play Wicked Grace," Hawke said as he joined them, glaring at Gwydion until the dog stopped jumping around and sat, tongue lolling out of his mouth happily. "I'm pretty sure that means you have to admit to liking him."

"That was before he started _winning_ ," Varric protested, but he was grinning.

"Your dog beats you at cards?" Connor asked disbelievingly.

"He beats Varric at cards," Hawke corrected. "I'm much too smart to let him sucker me into a game."

Gwydion woofed once in agreement.

"Ah, but where are my manners? Connor, this is my mabari, Gwydion, Giddy for short. Giddy, this is Connor. Be nice to him, he was a big help in Redcliffe."

Hesitantly, the lad held out his hand to Giddy and got a big slobbery lick on it in return. Surprise, surprise, Connor grinned. "When I was little," he said, his eyes still glued to Giddy, "Father promised me a mabari when I was old enough for one to choose me. But by then, I was in the Circle. I wish I had a treat to give him."

"I'm sure so does he," Hawke said, grinning at Giddy's suddenly hopeful look. "It's not like I didn't catch him puppy-eyeing the kitchen staff into giving him a second helping of breakfast not an hour ago." That got another woof from Giddy, and Hawke shook his head fondly. "I never have to worry about him starving at least."

He turned his attention more fully to Connor. "And you were just the mage I was looking for."

"I was?" Connor immediately looked worried again.

"You were," Hawke confirmed. "I wanted to thank you for your help. If you hadn't shown us how to get into the castle, things might have played out a lot differently."

"Oh. You're welcome. I'm glad I could help. Uh..."

The kid looked like he wanted to say something, so Varric prompted him. "Go on. Ask whatever it is. You're amongst friends here."

He gave Varric a quick and nervous smile. "It's just, if you happen to meet or write to my uncle at any point..." He trailed off.

"You want us to tell him you did good?" When Connor managed a nod, Varric grinned. "No problem. Only right he should know who helped him get his castle back."

"Anyone else we should make a point of telling how you helped the Herald of Andraste defeat the evil magister?" Hawke asked. "Some of the other mages maybe...?"

Connor shook his head hurriedly. "No, not them."

"How about the king?" Varric asked. "He's a friend of mine, so would listen when I sang your praises."

Connor went bright red. "I, uh, I didn't do much really."

"You did more than the other mages there," Hawke told him. "Showing us how to get into the castle aside, you spoke up. No one else was doing that. At least not to us."

Connor managed another smile. "Uh, did you want me for something else?" he asked Hawke.

"An apprentice," Hawke said.

Varric turned to stare at Hawke, his eyes wide. He hadn't seen that one coming.

"I know the timing isn't ideal – with everything that's going on I can't really give you the attention you deserve right now, but this situation isn't going to last forever. And I'd like the chance to work with you, teach you like my father taught me." Hawke looked at Connor hopefully.

Connor looked bewildered or simply lost. He kept looking between Varric and Hawke. "Why would you...? I'm not even talented as a mage."

"Who told you that?" Varric asked sharply. "The same idiots that keep blaming you for being a child victim of a demon?"

"They're not wrong," Conner said, managing to look both sad and stubborn at the same time. "About either thing."

"I don't think we really know how talented you are in magic, yet," Hawke told him. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but with everything that you've been through and how the Circle works, I'm pretty certain all the emphasis in your lessons has been placed on control, right? Hammering over and over again on what could happen if you slip up even just a little. Not leaving even a chance that something could get away from you."

Connor didn't deny it; he didn't say anything at all. Maybe this conversation was getting to be too much for him.

"You don't have to decide now..." Varric started.

"No!" Connor blurted out before moderating his tone when he said to Hawke, "I mean, yes. Yes, please, if you really mean it, I would like to be your apprentice."

Hawke gave one of his beaming grins. "Done!" he declared, clapping Connor on the shoulder. "And thank you – it would've been really embarrassing if the first time I offered to teach someone they turned me down flat."

This time Connor's smile didn't immediately fall from his face. "Is there anything you want me to do now?"

"I have to head out on a mission tomorrow, but when I'm gone, I want you to write out what you think your strengths and weaknesses in magic are, what elements call to you, what ones you find hard to connect to, all that sort of thing. When I get back, I'll run you through your paces, and we can figure out together where to go from there, okay?" Hawke paused and then added casually, "Oh, and I don't suppose you'd be willing to look after Giddy for me when I'm gone would you?"

Connor's eyes grew even wider. "Uh..." He looked at the mabari, who looked back at him and barked. "Would he let me?"

"Ask the dog," Varric advised. "You'd be surprised how well he communicates."

"Can I... look after you?" Connor asked Giddy uncertainly, who barked twice and turned in a quick circle.

"There, see?" Varric said encouragingly. "He's all for it." It was probably more a case that the dog would look after the boy, but Giddy had a great straight face when he needed it.

"You can start now if you want," Hawke suggested. "Take him out to the fields and let him run around until he gets rid of some of that excess energy."

"Just don't let him try to herd the druffalo," Varric said with a wink. "No one has the time for that."

When Connor and the hound were sufficiently out of earshot, Varric turned to Hawke. "That was a good thing you just did."

Hawke shrugged, looking uncharacteristically bashful. "With everything that kid's been through since his magic manifested, he deserved a break. I just hope I can fix some of the damage that's been done to him."

"Yeah," Varric said thoughtfully. "After Therinfal, have you considered a trek to Denerim? If we're looking for allies, why not go for the easier ones first?"

"I've been leaving that kind of large scale ally gathering to the experts, but that isn't the worst idea I've heard," Hawke said after considering for a moment. "Though Solas thinks we should be ready for another attempt to close the Breach by the time we get back, especially with the extra magic power the free mages represent. I should probably take care of that before planning any further jaunts. If things in Therinfal didn't sound so bad, I'd be putting that off too."

"Fair enough. So when are we setting out?"

"Tomorrow after breakfast." Hawke paused, looking at him. "This was when I was going to ask you to come, but I guess I don't really need to."

"Too right you don't get to leave me behind," Varric said indignantly. "Of course I'm coming."

Hawke's relief was obvious. "Good. I didn't want to assume, especially with the whole Anders situation, but this will be a lot easier to deal with having my trusted dwarf along."

Varric sighed inwardly; he should've known that was what was making Hawke hesitant. "Unlike some of your friends, I know when not to mention any controversial opinions I might have. You don't need to worry about Blondie and me; we'll be fine."

"I wouldn't blame you if you weren't, but I'm glad to hear it," Hawke said. "So I'll just say thank you and drop it." He looked up at the sky. "Getting close to lunch time. Want to join me for some in the tavern?"

"Now when would I ever say no to that?" Varric said with a laugh. "Especially when you're buying. I'm not being miserly; it's just they only give the good stuff to you!"

"Good stuff being a relative term of course," Hawke laughed, starting to walk towards the tavern, Varric falling into step at his side.

***

"So," Fenris began, glad to finally be below the snowline, "just so I'm clear, are we going to rescue these templars or kill them?"

"I don't think I'm allowed an opinion on this one," Anders said breezily.

"Blessed wonders of the Maker, he _can_ learn!" That was from Varric. Anders made a rude gesture in his direction.

Fenris sighed. "Hawke?" he prompted.

"Anders is right; he doesn't get an opinion," Hawke quipped deadpan.

Fenris scowled, but more because he thought it was expected of him than any real sense of annoyance. It was surprisingly pleasant, in fact, to be travelling with them again, even with the addition of a Tevinter mage of all things. A Tevinter mage who was keeping sensibly quiet right now, mind you.

"It all depends," Hawke said after a moment, his answer serious this time. "Ideally we rescue them. That's plan A. Unless they've all gone crazy like Meredith, in which case we go to plan B."

"What we've seen of red lyrium doesn't exactly suggest 'sanity' after consumption," Varric said. "I'm all for saving whoever can be saved, but once that stuff's in their system..." He shrugged expressively.

"Let's hope they don't have giant stone statues at this redoubt," Fenris said dourly.

"Cheer up," Hawke said, clapping him on the shoulder. "At least I can pretty much guarantee that none of the mages fighting alongside you is suddenly going to decide to build a giant monster out of corpses and blood magic."

"No one expected that from Orsino either," Fenris pointed out.

"He was an idiot," Anders said. "There was no need or reason for what he did." He paused and then said, "Well, Kirkwall. That might just about have been reason enough, I suppose."

Varric frowned at him, and for a moment Fenris thought he was going to say something, but instead the dwarf just shook his head and concentrated on picking his way across the wide but shallow stream they were fording.

"This isn't Kirkwall, and we're older and wiser," Hawke said after a moment. "Surely that means we can manage a better outcome?"

Fenris glanced at Hawke, wondering if he'd really heard a note of uncertainty there. Maybe he was thinking, as Fenris surely was, that a party that was three-fifths mage wasn't exactly the ideal one to go up against a templar horde. Of course, once they got there, the nobles the Inquisition had called upon should be waiting for them.

"In this false future you were sent to," he began, "you said we were infected with this red lyrium disease?"

Hawke's entire body language tensed up at the question, his expression smoothing out into that grim blank one that Fenris had learnt meant he was intensely upset and trying to hide it. "Yes. The stuff was everywhere. I don't think there was anyone left who wasn't infected."

Wincing inside, for he hadn't intended that reaction from Hawke, Fenris soldiered on. "And yet we fought on your side. Even if these templars at Therinfal are infected, their minds may not be lost."

Some of the careful blankness eased as Hawke considered that. "It's possible, but it isn't something I want to count on. There aren't many people who are as... extraordinary as you and Anders."

Fenris and Anders made almost identical snorting noises in response to that, and Fenris glared at Anders... who just laughed at him.

"So," Varric started, and Fenris wasn't surprised to hear him change the subject. "You're uncharacteristically quiet, Sparkler. We couldn't shut you up on the way from Redcliffe."

"I've merely been listening to the four of you," Dorian said. "You lot have such cheerful topics of conversation."

"Suggest a new topic. We've a long trek ahead; any subject is welcome," Varric told him.

"Very well," Dorian said with aplomb. "I am curious about how such... different people ended up as friends. How did you all meet?"

Hawke chuckled. "Ask my biographer."

"Even better," Varric said with a laugh, "buy my book!"

Dorian made a show of looking around him. "Unless one is hiding behind that big tree over there, we seem to be short of booksellers at the moment..."

"Point taken." Varric paused – knowing him, for dramatic effect. "Well, I guess you could say it all started with the Blight. Hawke and his family arrived in Kirkwall with many other Ferelden refugees only to find that his ne'er do well uncle had lost the family estate they'd been counting on. Hawke needed to make money fast, and that's where I came in."

"And then me," Anders put in.

"I'm getting to you, Blondie. Hold your horses. So... my idiot brother Bartrand and I had a plan to delve into the post-Blight, darkspawn-depopulated Deep Roads and find a priceless treasure or two. I charmed Hawke into agreeing to accompany us, but being surface dwarves, we didn't know how to access the Deep Roads locally."

"But I did!" Anders interjected.

"But rumour had it the local apostate healer happened to also be a Grey Warden, and who better outside of Orzammar to ask about the Deep Roads than a warden?"

"We showed up at his clinic and after some... negotiations that involved a run-in with templars, I charmed him into not only giving us the maps, but agreeing to come along while I got up to dangerous and vaguely profitable things in order to fund us," Hawke said, grinning at Anders.

"Enough to afford Bartrand's joiner fee, at least," Varric agreed.

"That explains you three, but what about Fenris?" Dorian asked, turning to the elf. "You seem to be the oddest fit with this little group – no offence meant."

Why was it, Fenris wondered, whenever anyone said 'no offence meant', it was always because they'd just said something offensive? "Because I'm not a mage? Because I'm an elf and an ex-slave? Or because I could put my hand straight into your chest and crush your heart like butter?"

Dorian didn't flinch. "Frankly, yes," he said, meeting Fenris gaze squarely. "The first three reasons you gave, not the crushing hearts thing; that is just another demonstration of your charming personality. I would not expect someone with your background and temperament to voluntarily seek out the company of two apostates."

"He wasn't the–" Varric started, but Fenris quickly interrupted him.

"What do you know of my background?" he demanded

"Danarius was not shy about broadcasting his successes, and how many elves with a Tevinter accent and lyrium brands can there possibly be?" Dorian explained as if it was obvious. "News of your escape caused Danarius a considerable loss of face and an equal amount of delight in more enlightened corners of the upper classes. The man was completely odious and vile."

"The man is dead," Fenris said and began to walk faster. He didn't want to talk about this, not with someone Hawke wanted to keep alive, anyway.

"Yes, I remember when my father mentioned his seat opening up in the Magisterium," Dorian continued on, obviously not sensing how close he was to death. "Your doing I take it? A fitting end for that wretch of a man."

"And so will all slavers die," Fenris growled.

"You're on really thin ice here," Anders said cheerily, presumably to Dorian. "Big cracks developing all around you. Just in case you didn't realise."

He heard Dorian give a loud, gusty sigh. "I was merely stating what I knew of his past when he asked and trying to convey how much his killing Danarius improved the general state of the world."

"I didn't do it for you!" Fenris shot a desperate glance at Hawke. "Are you certain you need him alive?"

"I would appreciate you not killing any of our travelling companions," Hawke told him. "It makes for awkward questions when I arrive with less people than I left with."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dorian exasperatedly throw his hands up in the air. "Fine," he huffed. "I'll go back to being uncharacteristically silent, since I apparently can't say anything right. Or is it just the sound of my voice that's offensive?"

"We're less than an hour into our journey, Varric," Anders said. "Pay up."

Fenris whirled around to glare at him, effectively halting the party. "I will _not_ be made the subject of wagers!"

Varric looked as if he'd suddenly developed a terrible headache.

"Oh, calm down, Fenris," Anders said. "I'll split it with you, if you want, like we used to with Isabela."

Fenris stared at Anders, wondering, as he often did, just why he was bothering talking to the mage at all. "How much?" he asked slowly.

"Twenty royals," Anders said, "ten each." He chuckled. "Good thing I won really as I don't have a single gold coin to my name."

"You do now," Fenris said, holding out his hand to Varric. "Pay up, dwarf."

Varric shook his head. "Unbelievable," he muttered as he drew his coin purse out.

Dorian watched all of this with his mouth hanging open a little. "Shouldn't I get a cut as well?" he blurted as the money changed hands.

"Too late," Anders said, pocketing his share of the winnings. "Ask quicker next time."

Fenris sighed, split his little pile of gold in half and offered one of the halves to Dorian without a word.

Dorian blinked, gave Fenris a wary look before taking the offered coin. "Thank you," he said, quiet and sincere, an obvious contrast to the way he'd been speaking before.

Fenris nodded and turned. They started walking again, quieter now. It gave him time to think, mostly about Pavus. The man seemed genuine in his desire to thwart the twisted aims of his countrymen. As privileged Tevinter scions went, he was probably one of the better ones. That didn't mean all that much, however, and certainly didn't mean Fenris had to like him, no matter how handsome he was.

It... was possible Dorian just needed a little re-education to be bearable, but if so, Fenris wasn't the re-educator needed. His lessons tended to be a little sharp and to the point. And anyway, all else aside, the man was a Tevinter altus. He might not have slaves now, but he assuredly grew up with them, and whatever Varric said, he will have used blood magic. They all did.

"I'm going to scout ahead," Hawke announced after a few minutes. He turned to Fenris. "Want to back me up?"

He nodded, wondering if Hawke's intention was as obvious to everyone else as it was to him. "Lead on."

They sped up, quickly leaving the others behind them. "You've mellowed," Hawke said when they were far enough away to not be overheard. "I was half-expecting I would have to jump in between you and Dorian to keep you from trying to rip his heart out."

Fenris shrugged. "He saved your life, twice by all accounts."

"That he did," Hawke agreed. "And he seems to be a genuinely good man underneath all that snark and bluster. So thank you for your restraint." He glanced sideways at Fenris and gave him a wry smile. "Have I apologised lately for how I seem to keep forcing you to work with and protect mages? Because I feel like it's been awhile since I've done that."

"Seems to be what I was meant for in life, one way or another. Ironic, really. But Hawke, don't trust that Tevinter. He may mean well, but they're all blood mages. _All_ of them."

Hawke was quiet for a moment, and when he did speak, it was obvious he was choosing his words with care. "I won't say you're wrong because I can't know that for sure, but I certainly haven't seen any hint of blood magic from him. And we were in some dire situations in which I would've expected him to use it if it were an option."

Fenris didn't say anything for a while, thinking it over, finally asking, "What makes him so different?"

"I'm still getting to know him myself, but from what I've seen from him, compared to other Tevinter mages I've encountered? The difference is empathy. He legitimately seems to care about people, about right and wrong." Hawke hesitated and then added, "And he doesn't exactly fit in back home."

"If what you say is true, he wouldn't. Is that why he left? Self-imposed exile?"

"Essentially. He told me his family disagreed with him on some of his choices."

"What choices would those be?" Fenris asked bluntly. He could think of a few possibilities, refusing to do blood magic top of the list.

Hawke sighed. "Apparently his family doesn't approve of the fact that he likes men."

That... was not what Fenris had expected at all. "Many of the ruling classes like men," he said, trying not to think about what that had meant in his case. "Do you mean he refused to keep it... to the slave stables?"

Hawke turned his head sharply to look at him, wearing that look of dismayed distress he always did when Fenris let slip something particularly awful about his past. "Those... are a thing?"

Fenris shrugged uncomfortably. "They have to sleep somewhere. As a bodyguard, I was saved that at least."

"And suddenly I wish there was a convenient nearby slaver camp that I could rain fire and lightning down upon," Hawke said in a conversational tone.

Fenris snorted with laughter. "If you knew how often I've found myself wishing that... It's been a while. There wasn't any near where you had Anders sequestered."

"Not by the time you joined us, no," Hawke said with a wolfish grin.

"Glad to hear you're keeping up the good work." Hawke and he might not agree on everything, but one thing they'd always been on the same page about was killing slavers. How would this Tevinter feel about that, he wondered. Talking of which, "Did he refuse to marry some woman his family had chosen?"

"He didn't say that he had specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me if he had," Hawke said. "He did specifically say that he had never slept with a slave or anyone who wasn't willing. That seemed to be something important to him to make clear."

"Hmm." This did seem important to Hawke. "You like him?"

"I do," Hawke confirmed, then smirked. "Unless you're asking that question like Isabela would ask it, and then my answer is not like that."

"Why not? He's a handsome man." Hawke might be spoken for, but that didn't make him blind.

He got a strange, amused look from Hawke then. "Maybe he's not prickly enough for me," he said, reaching out and ruffling Fenris' hair in that way he clearly knew Fenris liked, however much he might try to hide it.

"Well," he said, trying to duck out of the way. "Good." Time for a new subject. "This herald thing of yours, is it possible? Have you really been... chosen?"

"I honestly don't know," Hawke said, manner turning serious as he contemplated the mark on his left hand. "It sounds insane, but with everything that keeps happening to me?" He shrugged with a sad half smile.

" _Misare viros adiutos ab diis; nam quietem numquam habent,_ " Fenris quoted.

"If that means some version of 'You are so fucked' I completely agree," Hawke said wryly.

"More or less," he agreed with a slanting smile. "'Pity those whom the gods favour, for they may never rest'. Whatever Andraste demands from you, Hawke, you can rely on my company."

Hawke returned the smile. "Believe me, I do. Ever since you and Anders got here, I've felt... well, not like things aren't about to spin off into even worse catastrophes because they still seem to be trying to do that, but as if I can handle them if they do. Having you at my back makes a big difference."

"Or in front of you," Fenris added, "with a big sword."

Hawke laughed and slung an arm around Fenris shoulders for a few steps. "That makes an even bigger difference."

That, Hawke's affection, was always pleasant. Painful too, but Fenris couldn't remember a time when pleasure wasn't mixed with pain. It didn't matter. Sometimes he hated himself for walking out on Hawke all those years ago, but he knew really that it couldn't have gone differently. Not then, and perhaps not even now, not that he'd ever know. The important thing was that Hawke still wanted him around, still found him useful and still, for some incomprehensible reason, seemed to enjoy his company.

 _That_ was what mattered.

"I agree," he said after a few minutes of companionable silence. "With what you said about Anders before you left for the Conclave. He _is_ different." No less annoying, of course, but... more stable. Less driven.

Hawke let out a breath that was nothing but a release of tension. "I don't know whether it was Kirkwall itself or just the way the pressure and tension kept building between the mages and templars with Meredith slowly losing her mind, but it obviously made him so much worse. When everything happened, when we left, there was barely an Anders remaining. Part of me was convinced I was going to lose him, even though I didn't..." Hawke trailed off in a rough voice.

He cleared his throat before continuing. "But ever since we left that place, he's been getting better. Slowly, so slowly I almost didn't notice at first, but it's like he's finding himself again. He's _Anders_ again, not whatever it was he'd become at the end there. Even Justice is a lot easier to get along with now."

"He still has... moments," Fenris said wryly. "When we were passing Therinfal, Anders just wanted to be as far away from the templars as he could. Then..." He frowned, his memory hazy. "Then something sparked Justice's interest, and suddenly I thought I was going to have to carry him to stop him leading a one mage assault on the redoubt."

Hawke made a thoughtful noise. "Interesting."

"We should watch him around templars."

"Oh, that's been a given since I met him," Hawke said, still seeming strangely upbeat about the conversation. "But... that might not be what was happening this time. As far as we know, the only injustice going on in Therinfal right now is the templars being fed red lyrium. To have Justice set off by something happening to templars... well, that wouldn't have happened a year ago."

"Hmm." Fenris didn't think it had been that, but he didn't seem to be able to remember the details. "I think," he said frowning, "it was something that... that spirit said..."

"The one you couldn't remember?"

"Still having some problems there." He _really_ didn't like having his head messed about with. "Anders doesn't seem to share the problem. Ask him."

"How are you doing?" Hawke asked. "With all that... amnesia thing."

"It is... not pleasant. I dislike only having Anders' word for what happened. There's still so much from before that I can't recall, this spirit adding to the blank spaces? It makes me angry."

Hawke nodded, like he had expected that. "Me too."

He smiled at Hawke, appreciating the support. "And yet, it's on its word that we're travelling today. I hope it's not a trap."

"Well, it's not like we're not experienced at killing templars or demons if it is," Hawke said, sounding optimistic, like he had back in Kirkwall when things weren't falling down around their ears.

Fenris stole a glance at him, curious. "Are you... having fun?"

"If I said yes, would that make me completely insane?" Hawke's mouth curved up into a grin.

"No more than usual," Fenris said and laughed.

"I think I am, crazy as that is," Hawke said shaking his head, still smiling. "Though that has more to do with the company than the impending world-ending danger."

"You've missed how it was in Kirkwall, before it all fell apart," Fenris said and nodded. "I believe I have too."

"There's just something about facing insane odds with people you can trust completely to have your back, even when everyone is snarling and arguing with each other," Hawke declared. "Makes me feel like I'm home."

"I'd say you had strange tastes, Hawke, but it seems we all do." Fenris looked down, half-smiling. "On a related topic, shouldn't we be letting the others catch up?"

"That depends on if you've had enough of a break from Dorian that the urge to rip his heart out is back down to manageable levels," Hawke said, only half teasing.

"It's enough that you don't want me to kill him." It always had been; Hawke should know that. Fenris would have ensured Anders hadn't survived long enough to reach the Deep Roads if Hawke hadn't wanted him alive.

"Still, I don't want you to accidentally strain something resisting." He gave Fenris a serious look. "We can scout ahead again any time you need a break. From Dorian or Anders or... whatever. Just because I like that you're prickly doesn't mean I want you to spend all your time aggravated."

"That won't be necessary, but... thank you. I appreciate the offer and the concern shown."

"In that case then, yes." Hawke grinned and sat down on a nearby rock. "We should wait for the others."

Fenris stood by him, in a way that he had to admit was not unlike his old bodyguard stance. He took and released a deep breath before saying, "I'll be more patient with your altus friend. I accept that he is... different from his countrymen; he still has the ignorance that comes with a life of privilege, however. He needs... re-education on some matters, but not from me."

Hawke chuckled. "I don't know. He may need someone to, uh, put things bluntly for him to really see them. It's hard sometimes to get out of your own head and way of looking at things."

"Words are not really a skill of mine, Hawke," Fenris said, pulling a face as he stared back along the path. "The right ones, anyway."

"I don't know," Hawke drawled slowly. "You always seemed to do okay with me. Just don't worry too much about getting angry with him and telling him why. You don't need to be polite or hold it in just because I asked you not to kill him."

"Hmm," Fenris said noncommittally. He'd have to think about that. Killing slavers was so much easier than changing people's minds. "Here they are," he said as the others emerged from behind the big rock the path had bent around a short way from where they were resting.

***

Travelling and camping with Hawke and his friends was a far different experience than doing so on his own had been, and by different, Dorian meant far superior. Not only were they more adept at tents, bedrolls and cooking over an open fire than he (although he was rather proud of how well he had managed when thrown into it), but it was just _nicer_ to not be totally alone.

Especially with people who seemed to be making an effort to include him and who seemed to actually like him. Or at least most of them.

Dorian sighed and stared at the canvas roof of his tent overhead. Fenris had pretty much ignored his existence after Dorian's attempts at conversation had backfired so spectacularly. He still didn't know what exactly he'd said that had set the elf off – he'd been trying to convey how much he admired what Fenris had done, getting away from Danarius and then putting an end to that horrid excuse of a human being. It was a delicate subject, he'd realised, and he had done his best to choose his words carefully, but not carefully enough it seemed. He was surprised it actually bothered him as much as it did.

He knew himself well enough to know he was just going to keep worrying at it until he was able to fix it, so with an exasperated sigh at himself, he climbed out of his bedroll and threw on a cloak before leaving the tent. Fenris, he knew, had first watch. It would give Dorian a chance to apologise for whatever he'd done without an audience at least.

He found the elf standing away from the smouldering campfire, staring out into the darkness. Fenris must have heard him approaching, but he didn't turn around. He did, however, speak in a low voice.

"All is quiet. Go back to your tent."

"Can't sleep," Dorian said, coming up to stand beside the elf. "I thought I might keep you company."

"Why?" Fenris asked bluntly, apparently not one to mince words.

Dorian took a deep breath. "I wanted to offer you my apology," he said formally. "I obviously offended you earlier, and it was not my intent. Far from it."

"You're not sorry."

"I can assure you I very much am," Dorian insisted, feeling a flicker of irritation at having his sincerity doubted.

"You're sorry that your charm failed to have its usual effect," Fenris said coldly, turning to face him. "You're not sorry about saying what you said. For that to happen, you'd have to understand why it offended."

"Then why don't you enlighten me then?" Dorian challenged, crossing his arms over his chest. "Since apparently you know my feelings and intent far better than I do myself."

A ripple of lyrium blue flared on the exposed areas of Fenris' skin. He took an audible breath and released it, and the light faded. "Your family kept slaves. You grew up with them tending to your every need." Fenris stated these facts as, well, facts. He wasn't asking a question.

"I don't deny that," Dorian said because there was no point in doing so. Every noble house in Tevinter kept slaves. "But we have always treated them well."

This time the lyrium flare was bright enough it scarred his vision for a time, and it took several seconds for Fenris to, presumably, force it back down. "That's how you justified it to yourself." Again, not a question.

Dorian was becoming more and more frustrated with the conversation. It was starting to feel like they weren't even speaking the same language. "Justify _what_ exactly? That my family owns slaves? It's not like I had any say in it. Some of them have been with the family longer than I've been alive. Besides, every noble house has slaves. It's just... just the way things are done."

Suddenly Fenris was standing so close their chests touched, glowing a brilliant blue. "And that makes it right?" he roared up into Dorian's face.

Dorian had to fight not to take a step back, though the thrill of fear that went down his spine was not as powerful as it probably should have been, given what he had seen Fenris do. There was something just so... magnificent about seeing him like this, all rage and power and unfettered freedom. The idea that someone had made a slave out of him was repugnant. Not just the idea that he had been abused horribly, but that he had been enslaved at all. It was, in some ways, an entirely new thought for Dorian. "Nothing that was done to you is even in the realm of being right," he said as calmly and with as much conviction as he could.

For a few moments, there was no sound but Fenris' breathing, fierce and heavy, but then the elf stepped back, and although the glow of his markings didn't fade completely, it did significantly soften. "It is not right for any slave," he said, his voice low again, but intense. He turned to the side, staring out into the night again. "I apologise for... what I just did. I wanted to explain. Hawke wanted me to. It is just so hard to stay... I have so much anger."

"Rightfully so, considering what you've endured," Dorian said honestly. "I never questioned it before," he offered, trying to feel out this new perspective. "Slavery." He paused, trying to turn over the idea of slavery not just as something that just _was_ , but as an... injustice in and of itself. It was, unsurprisingly, disturbing to do, making him feel dizzy, like the footing he'd been sure of all his life was so much quicksand.

"But you are now?"

"I'm... trying." He suddenly had questions that had never been questions before, things that he had been taught that he had just taken as being correct. "It's... well, uncomfortable would be an understatement. Bewildering also comes to mind as an apt description."

"Good," Fenris said. He turned back to face Dorian, although now that his brands were quiescent, he was hardly visible. Just his hair, really. "You seem a compassionate man. Do you have the empathy, I wonder, to imagine yourself a slave? You are less than a person. You are an animal, like a horse or dog, to be conditioned, used, and disposed of as your owner prefers. Unlike an animal, however, you can also be raped whenever your master, regardless of their gender, feels the impulse. You can be whored to others should he wish it. Your opinions, preferences, pain levels, nothing matters at all apart from what your master wants. If you say 'yes' to whatever your master commands, you are complicit in your own slavery. If you say 'no', you are beaten or mutilated until you can't."

What Fenris was describing had enough in common with how Dorian had felt when dealing with his father's reactions to his own preferences that he felt his gut twist in the empathy Fenris was hoping he had. But he knew, however much what he had been through was bad, that what Fenris was describing was so much worse. A slave wouldn't have had the 'out' that he'd had. He tried to imagine what he would have done if he couldn't have walked away, if leaving hadn't been an option, if he had only the choice between doing what his father had asked and enduring the unendurable with a smile on his face, or undergoing the ritual to change him. Just thinking about it had him feeling trapped and panicky, so much so that he felt his gorge rising and just barely managed to stumble a half dozen steps away before throwing up.

He wasn't aware of movement behind him, but when Fenris spoke it was from close by. "I'm really not sure if I should apologise or not," he said, sounding different. Warmer perhaps.

Dorian straightened up and wiped his mouth with his sleeve with a grimace. "You... have a way with imagery that I almost wish you didn't have," he said, voice more hoarse than normal.

"Thank you," Fenris said. "Not for the compliment, but for... for reacting like you did. You're a better man than I'd assumed. Hawke was right."

Usually that would be where Dorian would make a grand statement about how wonderful a person he actually he was, but that particular mask just wouldn't come right now. "Ironic you say that, considering I was just thinking how much worse a person I actually am than I thought."

"Truth, I suspect, can usually be found somewhere in the middle." Fenris chuckled quietly. "Hawke's been trying to teach me that one for years."

"You never did tell me how you met him," Dorian said a bit cautiously, eager to change the subject, but not wanting a return to the snarling hostility of the afternoon. As off kilter as he felt right now, he wasn't entirely sure what was all right to ask and what wasn't.

"I needed help killing Danarius, who had traced me to Kirkwall. I paid a Carta dwarf to set up the unwitting help, which turned out to be Hawke and his brother, together with Varric, and the woman who's now the Kirkwall Guard Captain. It wasn't, as it turned out, Danarius himself; he'd already left if he'd ever even come at all, but Hawke didn't seem to mind being set up too much. 'Anything to kill slavers', he said." The satisfaction was obvious in Fenris' voice when he repeated Hawke's words.

"So a bond was formed over the bloody bodies of slavers?" Dorian mused. "That was all it took?"

Fenris snorted. "Not at all. I couldn't pay him what his aid was worth so offered my help in return. Several years later, Kirkwall exploded, and we all went our separate ways, only some of us... didn't." He chuckled, aware perhaps of the gaping hole in his story.

A gaping hole about which Dorian was becoming more and more curious, but he didn't want to push things when Fenris actually seemed to be getting comfortable with him. And all it took to reach that point was completely reworking Dorian's perspective on the world and him almost throwing up on his own boots. He chuckled to himself, knowing that finding the humour of the situation, even if just in his own head, meant he was starting to find his footing again.

"Varric's book fills in much of the detail," Fenris offered. "Even parts I'd rather he ignored."

"Ah yes, the infamous _Tale of the Champion_. It's beginning to look like I really do need to get my hands on a copy. Though perhaps, in the meantime," Dorian began hesitantly, "I can offer a tale of my own to help pass the time? Unless you'd rather I leave you to your solitude," he added quickly when Fenris didn't immediately answer, although the last thing he wanted to do was crawl back to his lonely tent and stare up at the dark. He already knew there was going to be no hope of getting any more restful sleep that night. Even if he did manage to drift off, he was sure it would only be to a return of the nightmares about his father and blood magic that had plagued him when he first left home.

"Go ahead," Fenris said, "but first, let's find somewhere to sit. Perhaps a little further from the tents..." He paused then added dryly, "though I imagine I've already woken many of them."

Dorian felt his face heat at the thought that anyone else had seen the spectacle he'd made of himself, although at least, if so, they's had the decency to pretend otherwise. "Maybe, uh, they're heavy sleepers?" he asked hopefully.

"Maybe." Fenris sounded like he didn't believe that for one moment. "There's a fallen tree over here," he added, walking off, his white hair staying visible longer than the rest of him.

Not being graced with the eyesight of an elf, and not wanting to complete the evening by tripping over a root and landing face first in the mud, Dorian called a small wisp to hand to light his way as he followed.

When he caught up, Fenris was just perching on the uncomfortable end of a dead tree, which was considerate of him. His face, illuminated by the wisp, seemed to be staring at it. "It took a long time for me to feel comfortable around magic," he commented. "Without Hawke, I'm not sure I ever would have done so."

Dorian froze. While unsurprising given Fenris' past, the elf's attitude towards magic had not been something he'd considered when calling up the wisp. His magic was such a part of him that truthfully he rarely thought when doing something as simple as lighting his way in the dark. "My apologies," he said, taking refuge in formality by bowing slightly. "I did not think. I can dismiss it if you'd rather...?"

Fenris shook his head. "It's me who should apologise. I shouldn't have assumed you could see the way. Please, keep your light."

"Thank you," Dorian said, surprised. He took a moment to settle himself on the log and regain his focus before speaking again. "So I believe I promised you a tale. And since I have the feeling that tales featuring a handsome, brilliant altus in compromising positions will play well to my current audience, I shall tell you about my trip south, and how I discovered that long sea voyages and this particular altus do not mix."

"A handsome, brilliant altus in compromising positions sounds like it could be to my tastes," Fenris agreed with a low chuckle.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Fenris takes a long walk inside...

Orlesian nobles, Hawke thought tiredly as he listened to Lord SoAndSo from Somewhere prattle on, were all the same – completely full of themselves and their own importance and obsessed with making sure everyone knew exactly how important they thought they were.

He would've been much happier if he could've said something pointed and walked away, but they needed them. The presence of the nobles, whether Orlesian or Fereldan, had done what Leliana and the other advisors had predicted it would – gained them entry to Therinfal, something Hawke knew he wouldn't have been able to secure any other way.

Still, he couldn't completely resist the urge to make fun when asked if he cared to mark the moment. "Never before has anyone purchased such an inspiring veneer of kinship," he said with a straight face. "It's a grand day for genuine partnership and all conditional servitude." He wasn't even sure himself what he'd just said, but it made as much sense as most of what he'd heard from Orlesian.

"Yes, yes," said Lord Abernache said behind his mask, "but I suspect the Inquisition will still take the assistance. Speaking of which," he continued as they headed up the path to the gates, "I don't suppose you'll divulge what finally got their attention? Rumour will if you won't."

And... Abernache was obviously set on making even less sense than usual. "What do you mean?" Hawke asked. Wasn't it the nobles that had grabbed the Templars' attention, after all?

"The Lord Seeker won't meet us until he greets the Inquisitor in person. Quite a surprise considering who and what you are."

That was putting it mildly. Hawke was suddenly feeling like he used to every time he walked into the Gallows – like a nug scampering straight into a pack of hungry mabaris. Still he wasn't about to let his unease show. "Interesting. Perhaps they've realised that the Inquisition only wants to ask their aid in closing the Breach," he improvised.

"Then it's all been arranged by your ambassador," the lord said as if it all now made sense. "Let the diplomats work their magic if you trust them. And here we are, Therinfal Redoubt."

Ahead lay a portcullis gate and many milling people getting steadily soaked in the Ferelden rain, including, Hawke noticed, Cassandra, who had travelled here with some of the nobles as the Inquisition had hurriedly collected them together.

Varric came up beside Hawke. "It just screams 'I hate fun and kick puppies', doesn't it?"

"It seems they've sent someone to greet you," Lord Abernache said, heading to the gate. "Present well. Everyone's a little tense for my liking."

Once he was out of earshot, Varric added, "I'd invite this lot out for drinks later, but I'm afraid they'd annex the tavern."

Hawke couldn't hold back a snort of humour at that. Thank the Maker for the dwarf. "We can't have that. No drinks for them." He looked up at the rather foreboding structure they were heading towards. "The last thing I expected was for the Lord Seeker to actually seem to want us here. Quite a change of heart from the rhetoric they've been spouting about me and Anders for the last year or so. Is he known for changing his mind?"

"Attack of conscience?" Dorian suggested as he and the others stopped beside Hawke and Varric. "I hear they happen once or twice an age."

"Not something I would want to lay a bet on." Hawke took a moment to look everybody over, especially Anders. "Everyone all right so far?" he asked carefully.

"So far," Anders repeated with a smile. Fenris nodded, not smiling.

"Josephine worked hard to get everyone here so fast," Cassandra said, joining them. "We should not waste her efforts."

"Any sign of anything... unusual?" Hawke asked her, since she'd had more of a chance to look around than the rest of them.  

"Yes," she said decisively. "They will not let me in there without you. I may no longer be part of the Seekers, or even Most Holy's Right Hand, but I would still have expected some sort of welcome here. Something is wrong inside. The templar at the gate seemed... frightened, or at least thoroughly unnerved."

"Lovely," Hawke sighed. He'd been more than half hoping that the spirit that had given the information to Anders had been lying or mistaken. "So this is almost certainly a trap then," he said as cheerfully as he was able. "We should head inside and trigger it. It would be rude to keep them waiting."

"Let's hope their magic-quashing powers aren't working so well today," Anders said, sounding positively cheerful.

"Don't worry, mage," Fenris said wryly. "You can always hit them with that contraption at the top of your staff."

"Southern templars can actually do that?" Dorian asked as they began to walk towards the gate, sounding fascinated. "I thought that was just propaganda."

"Oh, they can absolutely do it," Anders told him. "Feels like being punched in the solar plexus, only it's not your breath that's taken from you. If you'd like to experience it before we go in, I'm sure our Lady Cassandra here could oblige."

The lady in question made an exasperated noise.

"You've seen her do it," Varric pointed out. "In the future."

"Ah," Dorian said, apparently enlightened, "if it's all the same to everyone, I'll decline that offer of a first hand experience." He badly concealed a shudder.

"We probably should have you experience it so you know how to fight through it," Hawke put in. The first time you were smited was always the worst. "But not here, I agree; this is neither the time or place. Just... try to avoid being smited if – or more likely when – things go to pieces in there."

"Oh, believe me, I will," Dorian said fervently.

Their conversation amongst themselves ceased as they got within earshot of the milling nobles and templars in the courtyard just past the gate. The templars present, Hawke noted, were all low ranking, barely more than recruits. Interesting. One would've expected at least an officer or two would be there to meet them, after all.

Ah, but there at the inner gate was someone who at least looked as if he was paying attention, although not to Lord Abernache who was just receiving a formal introduction to the templar as Hawke approached them – Ser Delrin Barris, it seemed. The introduction was interrupted as soon as Hawke and his group were noticed. Barris strode straight between Abernache and his courtier to stop in front of Hawke.

"I've heard the Inquisition works to close this breach in the Veil. I wasn't expecting you to come with such lofty company."

"They weren't my idea, but I admit I went along with the plan," Hawke said, looking the knight over. He seemed hale and hearty, and there was a sincerity in his eyes that Hawke wasn't used to associating with Templars. "Consider it a momentary lapse in judgement."

"There's a lot of that about," Barris said. "This promise of status has garnered interest from the Lord Seeker beyond sense. The sky burns with magic, but he ignores all calls to action until your friends arrive. He has taken command, permanently."

"If he feels there is a holy mandate..." Cassandra started.

"That is what he claims," Barras said.

"Wonderful," Hawke growled. "Holy mandates make me nervous. The last knight I encountered who felt she had such went barking mad and tried to kill everyone in sight before turning into a statue." And if there _was_ red lyrium involved here like they suspected, this might just end up being a repeat performance.

"The Lord Seeker's actions make no sense," Barris said. "He promised to restore the Order's honour then marched us here to wait. Templars should know their duties even when held from it." And there was that sincerity that Hawke had sensed in the man. It made him bite back the sarcastic retort he otherwise would have let loose when faced with a templar talking about knowing their duty.

"Win over the Lord Seeker," Barris continued, "and every able-bodied knight will help the Inquisition seal the Breach."

While that wasn't the real reason they were here, it would certainly not be something that Hawke would turn away. "Wish me luck then," he quipped. "I have the feeling the Lord Seeker will take some... convincing."

"I wish I could reassure you. Lately he sees no one but the officers. We've been asked to accept much. Our 'truth' changes on the hour."

"Don't keep your betters waiting, Barris," Lord Abernache interjected. "There's important work for those born to it."

Hawke was unable to keep from rolling his eyes at that. He doubted that Abernache would know truly important work if it leapt up and tried to stab him in the chest. Which, come to think of it, seemed to be how most of the important work Hawke had undertaken seemed to go. He thought he saw a quickly suppressed glint of answering humour in Barris before the knight turned and led them inside.

"The Lord Seeker has a request before you meet him," Barris said as they walked. He led them to the side where three banners were hung, attached to simple pulleys. "These are the standards, an honoured rite centred on the People, the Maker and the Order. The Lord Seeker asks that you perform the rite so that he may see the order in which you honour them."

That took Hawke aback. "He does know who I am, right?" he asked staring at the three standards. "I'm probably not equipped to perform a Templar ritual correctly."

Barris winced very visibly. "There's no correct answer. The ritual merely shows watchers who you are and what you value."

Hawke rather thought that his actions of the last two years or so demonstrated who he was and what he valued pretty definitively, but he supposed there couldn't be any harm in reiterating that. "If that is what the Lord Seeker asks of the Inquisition..." he said grudgingly.

"Not the Inquisition." Barris lowered his voice and stepped closer. "The Lord Seeker changed everything to meet you. Not the Inquisition, _you_ , by name."

That... was disturbing. "Why?" he asked, hoping maybe there was an explanation that would make it all seem less creepy.

"I don't know. He's been fixated on you ever since your horde of nobles arrived."

It was possible Barris had been about to say more, but Lord Abernache interrupted. "The Lord Seeker makes us shuffle flags around? Refuse! Let's meet the man already."

Irritation overrode any reservations Hawke was having. Ignoring Abernache entirely, he told Barris, "We'll complete the ritual as the Lord Seeker requests." It wasn't like his choices were going to be a surprise to anyone who had even a passing knowledge of his history anyway.

"When you've completed the rite, I'll take you to him," Barris said.

Hawke nodded and approached the apparatus to raise the standards, examining it for a moment before stepping up to the wheel that would raise the people's. Of course people were what he valued the most. The loss of most of his family had made him even more determined to do whatever he must to safeguard the people he cared about. If he could also keep anyone else from experiencing the pain of loss that he'd had to endure, then that was a cause he was always going to be behind.

He raised that standard to the top then moved to the wheel that controlled faith. Faith was a bit problematic for him in a manner that people were not because of the way the Chantry judged and treated mages. He believed in the Maker and in Andraste, but he couldn't believe in the Chantry, not when doing so meant believing he and all the other mages should be locked up and watched, controlled, and treated more like dangerous weapons than people. But he had eventually come to terms with the fact he could have faith without believing what the Chantry decreed. Probably a good thing, considering what everyone was calling him now. He moved the banner to half mast.

That left the Order for last. To say Hawke had problems with the Templars would be an understatement to say the least. They'd been the thing he'd feared most when he was a child because it had been a very real possibility that they could actually come and take him away. Or his father or sister. His experiences in Kirkwall and after certainly didn't make his feelings about Templars, as a whole, any warmer.

But he knew there were some who were good people: Thrask, Kieran, and now Cullen, though Hawke would forever wish the man had been able to see through Meredith earlier. And his brother was named for a templar, one Hawke to this day wished he'd had the chance to meet. Those were the ones he tried to remind himself of whenever the subject of Templars came up.

When done, he turned back to Barris.

"Traditionally," Barris said, folding his arms, "a participant in the rite now explains their choices to those assembled."

There was a lot of ways that Hawke could've answered, but in the end he merely said, "I followed my heart."

"On a whim?" Abernache said from behind his mask. "If it wasn't to impress the Lord Seeker, why bother at all?"

"I suppose those are _your_ intentions," Barris said, clearly starting to lose patience with the man.

"My intent is to deal with people who matter," Abernache said. "You helm mouths are wasting the Inquisition's time and my time. Unacceptable!"

Barris sighed. "The Lord Seeker awaits you both," he said and turned, leading them to a wooden door.

Hawke opened his mouth to rebuke Abernache, but then closed it again with a sigh. It wouldn't do any good. He'd met nobles like him before. "Perhaps I should do all the talking when we get inside," he said instead, pitching his voice as mild as he could manage, which at this point wasn't very.

Inside a troop of silent templars stood to attention. Abernache and Barris headed to a desk in the centre of the badly lit room, already arguing, but there was no sign of the Lord Seeker.

"Without faith," Barris was saying, "you've no knights. You've–" He stopped talking as a door opened at the back and three more templars entered, one in grander armour than the rest. "Knight Captain!" Barris said, clearly surprised.

This Knight Captain came close and looked over Hawke's party. "You were expecting the Lord Seeker? He sent me to die for you."

No one seemed to know how to react to that. Hawke tensed. The feeling of something not quite right had intensified the moment the Knight Captain had entered the room. His odd words merely crystallised the feeling. "Barris, am I correct in assuming that the Knight Captain is not acting like himself?"

"You," the Knight Captain said darkly, his helm not disguising that he was staring at Hawke. "Be ready."

Hawke felt his party react to that around him, Fenris moving slightly in front of him, every inch of him as 'ready' as anyone could want.

"The Lord Seeker had a plan," the Knight Captain went on, interrupting something Abernache had started to say. "But the Herald ruined it by arriving with purpose. It sowed too much dissent."

In the background, a noise was beginning, one quickly recognisable as the sound of battle. Fenris drew his sword, and behind him, Hawke could hear the sound of Bianca being cocked.

Barris, clearly disturbed by what he was hearing, surged forward. "Knight Captain, I must know what's going on!"

"You were all supposed to be changed!" the Knight Captain exclaimed to him. "Now we must purge the questioning knights."

Hawke reached for his staff, catching movement out of the corner of his eye as he did so. Turning his head he saw two templar archers advancing, their faces covered in veins of red lyrium. He cast a barrier over himself and his friends, something he'd only recently learnt to do, and turned to face the advancing infected knights, his fingertips tingling as he readied a chain lightning spell.

Arrows started flying and blades were raised, but not against Hawke and his friends, not yet. It was templars who were falling in pools of blood. Well, Lord Abernache too, but who hadn't seen that coming?

"The Elder One is coming!" the Knight Captain cried. "No one will leave Therinfal who is not stained red!"

"Sod that!" Varric said succinctly as a barrage of bolts flew from Bianca towards the man. Fenris, lyrium brands afire, charged into the fray.

"Maker's breath," Barris said, drawing his sword and pulling back to near Hawke's party. It was clear whose side he was on.

The fight was brutal, but over quickly, thankfully with none of their side taking more than superficial wounds.

"It seems your tip about this place was correct," Dorian observed when it was over, leaning on his staff to catch his breath.

"I wonder where Cole is," Anders said. He was doing his best to save the untainted templars, victims of the Knight Captain's 'purge'. He was even managing to do it with only a slight sneer of distaste on his face. His actions weren't missed by Cassandra, judging by the way she was frowning at him. More in confusion, Hawke thought, than any other emotion.

"Hiding hopefully, given what's probably going on out there," Hawke said, checking on the knights they'd fought against. All of them were dead except... "The Knight Captain is still breathing."

"We should heal him enough to survive the journey to our dungeon," Cassandra said. "I suspect Commander Cullen will find what he has to say interesting."

"Who's this 'we'?" Anders asked, moving across the room to look down at the man who seemed more armoured pincushion than human thanks to Varric. "Do I have to?" Anders asked, his face now a picture of revulsion.

"Just enough so we can haul him back and lock him in a cell," Hawke said, knowing the poetic justice of them locking up a templar would appeal to Anders. "I'll even make sure it's solitary confinement.  

Grimacing, Anders knelt and started levering out Bianca's bolts from the armour. "This red lyrium taint better not spread via blood," he muttered.

"Red lyrium?" Barris asked, sounding aghast. "Is that what...?"

"It's like what happened to the Knight Commander back in Kirkwall, only on a much larger scale," Hawke said, grimacing at the bodies strewn about the room. "We received word that it was being used on templars here. That's why we really came, although I won't say no to any help with the Breach that's on offer after we take care of this little problem."

" _Little_ problem?" Barris repeated. "Can't you hear the fighting? I need to get out there. Some must still be saveable."

" _We_ need to get out there," Fenris said, looking at Hawke.

"I agree," Hawke said. "We'll save all we can, you have my word." He glanced over at Anders and saw that he was about done with the Knight Captain. "Ready to come to the Templars' rescue, love?" he asked, unable to keep from smirking at the irony of the situation.

"Let's just hope we don't have to kill them all after saving them," he said, moving to Hawke's side. "That would be a wasted effort."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," Hawke said, leaning over to steal a kiss. "For luck," he said softly, for Anders' ears only before turning to the others.

"Let's go save some templars, shall we?" Hawke said, then opened the office door and led them out into the chaos of battle.

***

The fight had been long and staggered, leading them on a meandering path through the redoubt. Fenris had been growing more and more annoyed as a suspicion grew in him that they were being led by the sword and staff to where someone else wanted them to be. Hawke had claimed to be hearing a voice, perhaps that of the Lord Seeker, so maybe that was the 'someone else'.

Finally, they emerged in an open area with flights of stairs leading up. No tainted templars were here, as far as he could see, and that without anything else screamed 'trap' to him.

"Ware, Hawke," he cried. "We should go carefully here."

"I'm always careful," Hawke said, which was a blatant lie, but he paused to squeeze Fenris' shoulder before he started climbing the stairs, moving more cautiously than was his usual wont. Fenris stuck close to him, just in case.

The stairs ended in a flat area and then more stairs and at the top of these stairs, outside large doors, a figure in armour stood with its back to them.

"Well, that's not weird at all," Anders said as they reached the top of the stairs and the figure, the man, didn't even turn around.

There was a moment where they all just stared, and then Hawke made an exasperated sound and started to approach him. The second that Hawke came within arms' reach, the man spun and reached out to grab him...

" _Fasta vass!_ " Fenris surged forward, using all the speed his unique abilities gave him, knocking Hawke away from those grabbing hands, which had been dragging him towards the door. The man – the Lord Seeker? – snarled in anger and everything suddenly went white...

He was... somewhere. Somewhere dark and full of swirling green mist. Brick-built arches loomed all around him, each with a flaming torch that failed to illuminate anything beyond a foot or so away from them. Tall grass surrounded his feet. He walked forward and started seeing figures – burnt black and contorted, silent and utterly still, some of them still alight. Where in the Void was he?

"Hawke?" His voice emerged only weakly from his chest. After a cough, he tried again, "Hawke? Anyone?"

No one answered so he walked further, weaving through the corpse fires. Were there figures ahead? Ones still alive?

As he moved closer, he was able to finally make out that it was two figures. A little closer still and he was able to see who they were, which almost caused him to stop dead because he knew them – Hawke and Dorian.

But the more he looked, the more it was obvious that something wasn't right. Both men were normally always in motion, faces animated and expressive, more likely to be talking than not. But the two figures that were standing in front of him had none of that. They just stood still, staring ahead, blank faced like a couple of dolls. They lacked the life, the _spirit_ that Fenris knew embodied them.

He drew closer, peering, and neither man reacted to him at all. He started to reach out when a noise, a kind of gasp from behind him, made him jump and whirl around.

Another figure walked into view, Anders. And while he was moving and seemed less like a... a prop than the other two, there was something terribly wrong with him as well. His voice when he spoke just reinforced that fact, reverberating with a strange resonance that reminded Fenris of when Justice spoke, but with an underlying malevolence that Justice had never possessed when he'd heard it, even when trying to murder rescued mages.

"Is this shape useful?" not-Anders asked. "Will it let me know you? Everything tells me about you." He walked over to stand behind the not-Hawke with a malicious smirk. "So will this," he said, grabbing not-Hawke's head and pulling it back so he could hold a dagger to his throat. "Watch."

Fenris sighed as the realisation belatedly hit home. "This is the Fade, and you are a demon. Whatever it is you want, you won't get it from me." He hoped to the Maker he was telling the truth; he hadn't fared too well during his last Fade adventure.

Not-Anders paused, then deliberately drew the knife across not-Hawke's throat, spraying blood everywhere. As wrong as everything was here, seeing even a facsimile of Hawke collapse was particularly difficult to watch. Not-Anders just smirked that evil smirk again. "You won't get it from me," he said – in Fenris' own voice.

"Is mockery meant to impress me?" he asked, allowing anger to suppress any other emotion.

"It wasn't supposed to be you," not-Dorian said, seemingly coming to life and walking forward, picking at his nails with a sharp knife. "It was supposed to be the Herald. But... I think I will enjoy this. Being you will be so much more interesting than being the Lord Seeker." He circled Fenris as he spoke, moving just out of his sight when he finished.

When Fenris turned, not-Dorian was gone. "Enough of this ridiculous game!"

"Do you know what the Inquisition will become?" Dorian's voice was right in his ear, and Fenris spun wildly, but there was no one there. The voice continued, however, coming from the very air around him. "You'll see. Becoming you will let me get close to the Herald. When I'm done, the Elder One will kill him and ascend. _I_ will be him."

"I'll never let that happen. Show yourself!" Fenris found his sword back in his hands again, and rather than question that, he rejoiced in the weight of it. "Show yourself to me!"

His only answer was laughter that held all the cruelty that the real Dorian's didn't. "When I know enough to wear your face, your closest companions will be mine." From out of the smoke not-Dorian appeared. "The Herald will be mine." He stopped in front of Fenris. "Glory is coming, and the Elder One wants you to serve him like everyone else, by dying in the right way."

Fenris swung with his sword, but the image of Dorian just wisped away into nothing. He snarled with frustration. There had to be a way out of this patch of Fade; standing still was getting him nowhere.

"I am not something you can just bat aside with your blade." Hawke's voice, distorted but still recognisable. Not-Hawke walked out of the smoke, the dagger now in _his_ hand. "I am Envy, and I _will_ know you. Tell me, elf, in your mind." Not-Hawke moved quick as a serpent, stabbing in the back a colourless copy of Fenris himself that had appeared. "Tell me what you think."

Before he could fully assimilate that, not-Hawke's voice came from behind him. "Tell me what you feel." Fenris turned to see not-Hawke leaning over a replica of Kirkwall that he was gleefully setting on fire. Another sound behind him and he spun again to see the colourless copy of himself collapse to the ground, hands over a stab wound in its chest. The bloody dagger was suddenly in his own hand, replacing his sword. "Tell me what you see," he heard his own voice say.

"Argh!" Fenris backed off, dropping the dagger. "Why? So you can play-act as me? What will that gain you? I'm not as important as you seem to think I am!"

"Is that the kind of man you are?" the voice asked, again seemingly from everywhere. "Are you a slave still in your mind, in your soul? Do you wear the chains still where no one can see them?"

Fenris opened his mouth to loudly refute that, but then stopped himself. Everything he said was just feeding this creature. Whirling around, he tried to work out the direction he had come in and then ran the opposite way.

A door appeared out of the mist, and he burst through it. On the other side of it, he came upon that strange copy of himself standing over the dead body of Danarius, the still beating heart of the magister in his hand. "What has magic touched that it hasn't spoiled?" he heard his own voice growl.

It had been Hadriana lying dead by his hand when he'd said those words; he remembered the moment so clearly even now, years later. This demon was taking more than images of his friends from his head, more than commonly known facts about him. It was taking his private memories and... playing with them.

He growled wordlessly and ran on. Another door and another tableau, this time it was the other him standing in the Gallows courtyard with Hawke and the rest of their friends from Kirkwall. The bodies of Orsino and Meredith both lay in front of them.

"You were right, Fenris," Hawke said in a tone heavy with grief. "Magic does spoil everything. The mages must be... looked after, controlled."

"Not just mages," his double was saying earnestly. "Templars too. Anyone who has power to abuse must be watched lest they ruin the world."

"It didn't happen like this. Hawke would never say that. What's the point in this... this revisionist fantasy?" He knew he shouldn't talk to the demon, but... No, there was no excuse. He closed his eyes tightly for a few moments' reprieve, trying to still his pointless anger.

"Questioning, denying, protecting your friends. Is that the man you are?" the disembodied voice of Envy came again, ending on a cruel laugh just as streams of fire burst out of the fountain like structures that were hidden further in the room.

The fire was green, but it hurt like real fire. Fenris tried to make his way around the edges of the chamber to avoid it. Everywhere he went, however, there was another little tableau laid out for his discomfort. He tried his best to ignore them. Between the fire and walls and bars popping up in front of him, it was worse than trying to navigate the maze of passages beneath Kirkwall. He caught a glimpse of a figure running through the flames out of the corner of his eye and tried to head that way for no other reason than it gave him something on which to concentrate.

"This is nothing in comparison to how glorious the Inquisition will be after the Herald dies at the hands of the Elder One," the disembodied voice mocked him as he ran.

And then there was another voice, not so distorted and almost familiar, but Fenris wasn't sure why. "You're hurting, helpless, hasty. What happens to the hammer when there are no more nails?"

He took a quick look around, but couldn't see anyone new, so he darted through an open doorway to escape the green flame for a while. Inside was... a bedroom of sorts, but one that paid no attention to gravity. Whatever else it was, it was definitely a dead end. Sighing, he turned to head back out into the larger chamber.

"Wait."

That voice again. Fenris spun back around to look at the room behind him, taking a few steps back to the centre of the room, eyes scanning the strangeness around him.

"Envy is hurting you." The voice again, directly behind him, he spun, thought he caught a glimpse of a young man in a large hat out of the corner of his vision as he did, but there was no one behind him when he had fully turned around.

"Mirrors on mirrors on memories," the voice continued as Fenris continued to look around, searching for the source. "A face it can feel, but not fake. I want to help. _You_ , not Envy."

"Then show yourself," Fenris growled. The glimpse he'd caught had seemed... familiar, like the voice. "Who are you? Where do I know you from?"

"I've been watching. I warned you before. I'm Cole. We're inside you. Or... I am. You are always inside you." The slightest bit of warmth and humour had crept into Cole's voice, something none of the voices Envy had put on had done so far.

Still searching for the voice's source, Fenris turned around again and finally spotted him. A young man in a big floppy hat and clothes that were little more than rags, unremarkable except that he was standing on the ceiling. "It's easy to hear, harder to be a part of what you're hearing," Cole told him. "But I'm here, hearing. Helping, I hope. Envy hurt you – is hurting you. I tried to help, then I was here in the hearing. It's... it's not usually like this."

The young man's speech made as much sense as the visual chaos around him. Fenris frowned hard and latched onto one of the few bits he'd hoped he'd understood. Hanging around with mages had given him a knowledge of things a warrior wouldn't usually have.

"We're in my head?" he asked. "Not in the Fade? Or in the part of the Fade where my dreams happen?"

"Your head, not Hawke's," Cole confirmed. "It tried to get inside Hawke's head, but you got in the way."

A loud growling sound came from the open door behind Fenris, and he glanced back. When he turned forward again, Cole had moved. He was now sitting on the ornate headboard of the bed, like an overgrown knick-knack. "I was watching. I watch. You came to help. Every templar knew when you arrived. They were surprised, but impressed. But not like the Lord Seeker."

However much he hated this, Fenris was glad it was him and not Hawke experiencing it. Hawke had more than enough to deal with, and anyway, if this was a trap with no release, then far better he was in here than the man with the power to close rifts.

"Envy is a demon; that much is obvious. What are you that you would help me?"

"I'm me," Cole replied as if that was an answer. "I help. It's what I do. Envy twisted the commanders. Forced their fury, their fight. They're red inside." He sat up, meeting Fenris' gaze with his own as he continued. "Anyway, you're frozen. Envy is trying to take your face. I heard it and reached out... and then in... and then I was here."

If this was the inside of his head, no wonder it was pounding. "You... are you the spirit? The one we met on the road?"

"Yes. I warned you. I lured and led them and you flew free. You got away and I made you forget. But you came back. You remembered. You wanted to help. Like me." There was surprised approval in Cole's voice.

"Why? Why did you make me forget?" This could all be another play of Envy's. "That's the sort of trick a demon plays!"

"Forgetting helps," Cole insisted. "They forget, and there's no fingers of fear forcing the good away. The good stays, the helping stays, the fear is forgotten." He paused, head cocked to the side oddly as he examined Fenris. "But for you, forgetting is the fear. You've forgotten too much. You forgot yourself once, and had to rebuild. Made you, _you_. Fenris. Won't forget again. Not again. This time I will stay me." Cole gave him a sad look. "I didn't see. I'm sorry. I should've looked deeper. You need to hold onto all of you. I won't make you forget again."

"Thanks... I think." He took a deep breath, thinking as he did that if this was... like a dream, then it wasn't air he was breathing. It wasn't really breathing, just imagining it. "The demon, Envy, wants to possess me?"

Cole shook his head. "Not possess, not like other demons do. Possession isn't enough for Envy. It studies and shifts and steals your shape. That's what this is about – it looks and listens and learns until its lies are good enough that no one will see its face is false. It doesn't want to possess you; it wants to become you."

"Hawke will see through that immediately," he said, trying to believe it just as firmly as he said it. "It would never work." He turned around and shouted, "You hear me, Envy? Your plan is doomed to fail!"

"Maybe," Cole agreed. "But... it would still be good if you got out."

"If I knew how to get out, I wouldn't be here talking to you." He supposed it wasn't that much of a surprise to find his head was such a disturbing place to be, but he'd definitely like to be out of it now.

Cole got up and walked across the bed he'd been perched on. "All of this is Envy. People, places, power. If you keep going, Envy stretches." He hopped off the bed and wandered over to stare into the fireplace. Fenris was a little surprised that he was able to see him the entire time.

"It takes strength to make more," Cole continued. "Being one person is hard. Being many – too many – more and more and Envy breaks down. You break out."

"I understand." He strode to the doorway, but paused before leaving the room. "Are you... staying?"

Cole turned around and looked at him. "I will... try. I want to help. You may not see me all the time, but you will remember me."

Fenris nodded and walked back into the room with the fire spouts. If this was his head then pain was only real if he let be. Channelling out pain was something he was skilled at. Every slave had to learn it to survive, and he'd had more practice than most. With a cry of defiance, he let his brands flare blue and charged through the green flame to the door beyond. He barely felt them at all. As he put his hand on the door, he asked, "Cole?"

"I'm here." Out of the corner of his eye, Fenris could see him standing beside him. "Whatever happens, keep moving. Make Envy work. It beats sitting around waiting to lose your face."

Through the door it was then. He started to open it but then something occurred to him. "You said I was frozen? Out there?"

Cole nodded. "Thoughts are fast. We're here. Outside a blade is still falling, hanging in the air like a sunset."

"Can I die in here?"

There was hesitation from Cole before he answered. "It would be good if you didn't."

"Helpful," he said wryly and pushed through the door to... an area of cells.

Another tableau of figures appeared in front of him. A row of mages, all of them terrified, all of them chained and collared like the slaves in Tevinter would be when being trained or transported.

"This will still happen," Envy's voice rang out again. "Betrayed allies will curse your name as you take away their freedom. They will be slaves. Nothing but property. Their lives will be nothing but violation and pain and fear. You will make them as you were."

Before he could react, Cole's voice spoke up. "Unless you don't. You don't have to. None of this is real unless you let it be."

That got a reaction from Envy. "Get out, _Thing_!" it snarled. "I am learning!"

Fenris was starting to be very glad for Cole's presence. Without him, Envy's machinations would be a lot more effective. As it was they were... unnerving. He pushed on, ignoring the mage slaves. They were no more real than anything else imagined. He never wanted mages enslaved anyway, only contained, controlled and... just this moment he was finding it hard to tell the difference.

"Arghh!" he cried out in frustration and slammed open the next door into a corridor. Only to practically run into another tableau of figures. This time it wasn't just nameless mages. This time it was someone he recognised, someone he cared about. Varric.

The dwarf was trussed up in heavy chains and covered in the cuts and bruises of someone who had been methodically beaten. He was shoved to his knees by a faceless guard dressed in armour that was a strange amalgamation of that worn by Inquisition forces and that worn by the Kirkwall city guard.

Fenris' double strode forward and looked down at the dwarf disdainfully.

Varric spat at him. "Keep up the torture if you want, I'm still not going to tell you where they are."

"You underestimate the amount of pain I can inflict," Fenris' double told him, then paused and continued thoughtfully, "But perhaps you are right. It will make little difference in the end. I will find every mage runaway you helped and drag them back here in chains, but no chains for you. You, I will grant freedom." He turned his head to address the guard. "Take him to the gallows."

"That is not Varric," he told himself out loud, but then he spoke to Envy. "Your little plays are nonsense. First you say you want to learn about me well enough to emulate me, then you show you've learnt nothing at all!"

He darted into a nearby open doorway, but it was a dead end. Another tableau was playing out but he ignored it. There was another dead end opposite so instead he jogged further along the corridor.

Much as he tried he couldn't ignore the tableau that lay behind the next doorway because it was Anders, beaten and chained like a recovered runaway slave. "This is what you always wanted, isn't it," he spat with venom at the double of Fenris that looked down at him coolly. "You wanted to switch places with the mages. Well, congratulations, you've got your wish. You're every bit as powerful and cruel as your masters ever were."

" _Kaffas_ ," Fenris muttered and backed up, hurriedly leaving the room when he saw his false self lifting what looked like the iron used for the Tranquil branding. That was not something he needed to see.  

In the opposite room he found Cole. "This is endless," Fenris told him.

"It's dark, but it isn't real," Cole told him, his strange knowing gaze as much a reassurance as his words. "Think of sparks. Keep going up. You're more you there than Envy, and that tires it out."

"You want me to climb the walls?" Fenris asked in response to the total lack of opportunities to go up.

"Envy is trying to lock you in the dark. Don't let him. You can light the way up if you believe." Cole's words were just as cryptic as ever, but he inclined his head slightly to the side, directing Fenris' attention to a wall sconce glowing with a strange green flame.

With a sigh, he lifted it from its bracket. He normally left the weird flames and puzzles to the mages in the party. They seemed to actually enjoy them. "Is there some rune I'm meant to trigger?" he asked, but Cole had gone again. With an even heavier sigh, Fenris trudged out and started looking up and down walls for something to do with the torch.

He backtracked, avoiding the doorway where he had seen Anders and going down one of the dead ends he'd discovered earlier. There on the wall was an unlit sconce identical to the one he'd taken. He stepped forward and lit it. The ground shook below his feet as it burst into flame, and the figures in the tableau he'd been doing his best to ignore suddenly turned tail and ran.

All right. He still didn't have any way out, but at least this felt like doing something. Fighting back. He strode with more purpose to the dead end opposite and found another unlit sconce. Lighting it produced the same results, ground shaking and figures fleeing from the light. That left the room with Anders. Steeling himself, Fenris went back in, doing his best to focus only on the sconce and ignore everything else. At least until he lit the torch – watching those figures jump and run away was particularly satisfying.

He followed them back out to the main corridor where they disappeared against the far wall in a puff of black smoke, and there – another sconce on the back wall. Lighting it had a much more visible effect than the others. The whole wall moved backwards as if it were on casters, revealing the way forward. Darting through the gap made, Fenris quickly found another room with – at last – stairs up.

Before he got to them, however, he made the mistake of glancing into the cell he was passing. It was another tableau, this time his double was accompanied by three large guards, all of them staring at another mage on his knees.

Dorian.

Dorian's clothing was still made of fine silks, but it was the clothing of a pleasure slave not mage robes. He was chained much as the other mages  had been and radiating anger and defiance with every movement. "You think I will ever submit to _you_?" he snarled at Fenris' double who stood watching him with cold amusement.

"What makes you think you have a choice about it, mage?" the double asked, before signalling the guards that surrounded Dorian to advance on him, their intent obvious.

Fenris backed up, unable to stop staring, his eyes wide. He should turn, run up the stairs, not voyeuristically watch this... this...

Dorian was slammed to the stone floor right at his feet, making a grunting sound. Fenris closed his eyes tight, but still didn't move. " _Futue te ipsi_ , Envy," he muttered as he heard silk rip, and he managed at last to turn aside. He staggered up the stairs to the sound of cries, curses and noises he didn't want to identify, finally making it through the door at the top and slamming it behind him.

At the top of the stairs he emerged into another room, but there was a piece of the Wounded Coast inside it. Hawke was shepherding a group of mages, all of them dressed in little more than rags and with gaunt faces and haunted eyes. "We have to keep moving," he was telling them and glanced behind them with a worried frown. "Fenris and his slavers will pick up our trail soon."

He really was getting to his limit with this. "So you think all that defines me is slavery issues and a hatred of mages, Envy?" he shouted. "You are doomed to failure if you do!"

"So defiant!" Envy observed in that odious way it had. "Shall I make use of that when I'm you?"

Before Fenris could properly react to that, he heard Cole speaking. "You're letting Fenris see more to sketch his shapes, but what he sees makes him stronger."

"Quiet!" Envy shouted back.

"Thank you, Cole," Fenris said more quietly, moving on as the tableau of Hawke and the mages dissipated away. He pushed open the next door to find... a forest? Maybe Envy wanted him to feel even more lost, but there appeared to be a path, so maybe not.

The path made him want to walk anywhere but there, deliberately head into the trees to avoid wherever it was he was being channelled towards, but that act would tell Envy just as much, wouldn't it? With a low growl, he strode off down the cobbled way.

"You wish to be difficult?" Envy snarled as he walked. Fenris took some small pleasure in the fact that Cole seemed to be angering it as much as it was angering him. "Then see what your legacy would be. Mages and all who would speak for them enslaved. Crushed under your yoke until they must fight back and cover the world in blood and ash!"

Fenris ignored it as best he could, climbing a stone stairway and coming upon a locked gate. Looking around he saw Cole, perched on the ground near a lever that looked like it should open the gate.

"Almost there," Cole told him. "Keep going up. You're making it hard for Envy to be. It will probably come out soon. It's angry. But that's okay. So are you."

He thrust down the lever, ignoring as best as he could the demons that were crowding at his back; they didn't seem able to hurt him much. The gate opened into another courtyard, with more stairs in easy reach, so he headed straight for them, paying no attention whatsoever to anything other than those stairs and Cole's voice.

The stairs led to another courtyard, with tall trees; weren't they on top of a previous floor? Either Fenris had lost all sense of direction or Envy didn't understand the way the real world worked. The only way forward seemed to be into a building, a tavern or mess hall by the looks of it, so that's where he headed.

"Almost there," Cole's voice encouraged him as he stepped inside. "Keep going up."

He took the advice, heading up the staircase in the mess hall and out a door to a stone path with more stairs going up and then, yes, another damn courtyard. Some of these areas looked like the places he'd so far explored in Therinfal, but wilder, full of demons and fire and rift explosions. More stairs, another doorway, yet more stairs, and yes, he definitely recognised this now. This was where the whole mess started, when the Lord Seeker tried to attack Hawke, and Fenris got between them.

He kept going up, and the second his foot touched the landing in front of the door, something shoved him from behind. He spun around to face himself, or the Envy copy of him at least. His double shoved him back against the door hard.

"Unfair, unfair!" it shouted in his face, grabbing onto him and lifting him off the ground. "That thing kept you whole. Kept you from giving me your shape!"

Fenris gave it a savage grin, shoving it back. "All this work for nothing. I pity you, demon."

Envy grabbed him again and shoved him even harder against the door. "I pity you," it parroted, but halfway through the phrase, its voice lost the sound of Fenris' own. "I pity..." The demon made a disgusted noise and shook his head, then glared at Fenris with renewed purpose.

"We'll start again," it said, bringing up a glowing hand towards Fenris' face. "More pain this time. I will have you!"

Fenris caught sight of a shadow behind Envy, watched how it moved and sprang away, before solidifying into Cole on top of one of the huge statues that flanked the stairs. "It's frightened of you," Cole said, distracting Envy from its task.

Envy started to turn towards Cole a snarl on its lips. "Get out of–"

Fenris roared, shoving the demon him back with all his strength. He wasn't going to submit to this even if he had to kill 'himself' to do it, but as his dark twin staggered back, everything went white until, to his initially confusion, he found himself slamming the Lord Seeker through the door that had been behind him.

He noticed two things immediately. He was back in what looked like the real world, and the Lord Seeker was now a truly grotesque demon.

The thing staggered to its long spindly limbs and made a sound that was halfway between a roar and a hiss before disappearing into a cloud of smoke that blew across the hall they were standing in and through a glowing green barrier.

There was a beat of shocked silence from everyone, and then Dorian drawled, "Well _that_ was unexpected."

"The Lord Seeker!" someone cried out, but Fenris wasn't paying attention.

It was over. He was free. He felt his strength leave his body and fell to his knees.

***

Anders saw Fenris collapse, but he'd already been hurrying to him. Justice had seen some sort of attack happen just before the Lord Seeker had revealed himself as a demon, an attack Anders' human eyes had not registered at all.

He dropped to his knees beside the elf, his hands already sparking with healing magic. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking Fenris over, "What did the demon do?"

Hawke knelt on the other side, hands twitching like he wanted to reach out but didn't want to get in the way of Anders' healing. "Fenris?" he asked, eyes dark with worry.

"I..." Fenris looked between Hawke and Anders. His face was full of exhaustion. "I don't want to talk about it." He peered around his helpers. "Where's Cole?"

"That spirit?" Anders asked, feeling confused. "I haven't seen him."

Hawke frowned, looking around. "Did he do something to you?"

"He helped me," Fenris said, sounding somewhat dazed. "Without him I'd be... something worse than dead now." He suddenly looked urgently at Anders. "Is he stuck in my head?"

"What?" Anders pulled a face. Things weren't getting any clearer here. "Cole was... inside you? Did he possess you?"

"No! Don't be a fool, mage. You're the only one who could possibly understand this, who could help him if he needs it. If you're determined to play stupid, let me talk to Justice!"

Anders couldn't help giving Hawke a pointed look at that. "Have you been hit on the head?" he asked Fenris caustically.  

"Not on the outside," a new voice said from right beside him, and Anders spun to see Cole kneeling between him and Hawke. "In his head he was hit a lot, but he hit back as well."

"You're all right," Fenris said, the tension going out of him. "I... was concerned."

"Okay..." Anders said slowly. He thought he was starting to understand. "In that fraction of a moment for us out here, after the Lord Seeker tried to grab Hawke... that was an extended adventure in Fenris' head courtesy of that revolting demon thing. Have I got that right?"

"It's an Envy demon," Cole explained. "It was trying to steal Fenris' face."

Hawke was looking back and forth between Fenris and Cole, eyes narrowed. "Because he stopped it from having a go at me?"

"Yes," Fenris said, moving so he could sit with his legs bent, his forehead resting on his knees. "It wanted to impersonate you as it has been doing the Lord Seeker, so it could corrupt your Inquisition into something twisted. But before you start on a guilt trip, Hawke, know that even had I known what lay ahead, I would've chosen to go in your place."

Anders frowned, running healing magic through Fenris with a light touch. The elf wasn't wounded exactly, but it was like much of his life energy had been drained out of him. And this could have been Hawke. Or Hawke could've not _been_ Hawke, not that any demon could've fooled Justice, he supposed.

"Knowing that you'd willingly throw yourself into the path of danger for me doesn't exactly help with the guilt trip, you know," Hawke said, though the words dripped with that fond exasperation that he always seemed to end up using with Fenris. He gripped the elf's shoulder briefly before turning his attention to the spirit that was still hovering beside them. "You're Cole," he said after examining him for a long moment.

"Yes," Cole replied.

"And you helped Fenris fight Envy off."

Cole nodded. "He still had to do most of it himself, but I tried."

Hawke nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you. But do me a favour, don't mess with his memory."

"He knows," Fenris said. "He won't." He uncurled himself and made an attempt to stand. "Envy is still alive; we need to–"

" _You_ don't need to do anything," Anders said, pulling him back down again. "We'll deal with the demon. All you need to do is rest. I'm surprised it isn't all you _can_ do."

Fenris growled at him, but it was a half-hearted attempt at his usual aggression. "I want to see that _kaffas re_ die."

Varric appeared beside them. "He's got some recovery time. The demon is behind magic barriers, and the templars need non-red lyrium to remove them. Guess who's expected to go get that lyrium."

Hawke cursed under his breath. "A herald's job is never done, apparently. You stay put," he said, giving Fenris a stern look. He gaze slid from Fenris past Cole to Anders and then with a frown, back to Cole as if he couldn't see him at first. He shook his head as if trying to clear it and stood up. "Anders, a word."

Anders stood and walked a few feet away with Hawke and then said, "No. You need a healer with you." Because it was obvious what was going through Hawke's mind.

"I need someone who can't be mind-whammied by spirits to stay with Fenris," Hawke countered. "This Cole may be exactly what he says he is, but I'm not willing to take the chance that he's not. Especially when he's been messing about in Fenris' head."

"And who gets to poke your insides back in when a red templar slices right through you?" Anders demanded, even though he knew already he was going to lose this one. The trouble was that he really _was_ the only one safe from possession here.

Hawke gave him a crooked grin. "I'll just have to make sure my insides stay where they're supposed to be in the first place." His grin faded, and he gripped Anders' arms, pulling him closer. "Please, love. I'll be a lot more able to keep my head in the game if I'm not worrying about what could be happening if I leave Fenris alone with that spirit."

He pulled a face. "Just... don't take risks – leave them to the seekers and templars in our midst. They've got to be good for something, after all."

He was rewarded for his capitulation with another smile and a quick kiss. "No risks, got it. I'll save the risk-taking for when we get that barrier down and deal with Envy."

Anders watched unhappily as Hawke started putting together a lyrium raiding party. Hawke spent far too much time leaving him behind with Fenris, he decided, turning back to tend to the elf, who he found now leaning back against a far wall. He'd maybe been helped there by Cole who was still hanging around.

He sat himself down on the other side of Fenris. "I'm on possession watch," he said, seeing no need to keep the wonderful news to himself. He was generous that way.

"Waves of worry try to drown him," Cole said in that strange dreamy cadence Anders remembered from the first time they met. "Hates himself for having to walk away and leave him in danger's path. Bad enough he was already hurt because of me, I can't lose him. I can't lose either of them." He frowned, dismayed. "My fault. I'm making it worse."

Even though Anders knew Hawke still cared for Fenris, it always caused something tight to twinge inside whenever he heard or saw the proof of it. He could certainly do without spirits telling the world. Anders sighed. "He doesn't know you well enough to trust you yet, that's all."

Fenris was frowning. "Hawke thinks Cole wants to possess me?"

"Yes," Cole confirmed. "He doesn't like that I was in your head. Or that I made you forget before. And he really doesn't like how his eyes didn't stick when he looked at me."

"You need to make him remember you properly like you did me," Fenris told him. "When we're finished here I'll make sure he knows you can be trusted."

"So you have a spirit best friend now, do you?" Anders said casually, wondering if Fenris could spell the word 'hypocrite'.

But Fenris didn't rise to the bait. "Leave it, mage," he said wearily.

Cole frowned at Anders. "Words worry and wound, sting and smart, help harden the hurt into hate. Hurt begets hate begets hurt. But wounds can heal and hurt can fade. Less hurt makes it harder to hate. He's not a hypocrite. He just had to heal."

Anders blinked. "If you know words 'worry and wound', why take things that were safely unsaid and let people hear them?"

Fenris snorted. "It isn't as if I didn't already know what you were thinking."

Anders rolled his eyes. "Cole, can you... see Justice? In me, I mean?"

"Yes," Cole said, then slipped into that strange cadence again. "You said it and let him in. Wind and wreathed, curled and coiled, over and through. Spirit and soul, embraced and entwined, until you think you can no longer say where one begins and the other ends. A whole, not a hole. They can never make me alone again."

Looking down, Anders repeated Cole's words in his head. No one had ever...

"Mage?" Fenris asked, "Anders?"

"Hmm?" He didn't look up. He felt a soft touch on his arm and looked up to see Cole watching him with an understanding gaze. Offering an uncertain smile, he said, "It's surprisingly pleasant to have someone know my circumstances and yet not immediately yell 'abomination' at me. At _us_." 'Pleasant' was, of course, a gaping understatement.

"You are what you are," Fenris said, leaning his head back against the wall. "It's pointless denying your true nature. You might as well beat yourself up."

"But that _isn't_ what we are!" Anders exclaimed, but then turned more hesitantly to Cole. "Is it?"

"A demon deceives and deludes, then slips in and steals the body, smothering the soul. That is an abomination. It leaves a hole. You are not like that. A whole not a hole," Cole repeated.

Now Anders' weak smile became a fully fledged grin. "See?" he said triumphantly to Fenris. " _Not_ an abomination."

Fenris rolled his eyes and said to Cole, "You're just encouraging him, you know."

"He needs encouragement!" Cole insisted.

"So he can blow up more chantrys?"

"Oh wonderful," Anders said, the good feeling he'd been enjoying fading very fast. "Just wonderful. Any chance you could say that a bit louder? I think there's some templars left at the far side of the hall that didn't hear that!"

"Don't worry," Cole told him. "If they tried to hurt you, Fenris would stop them."

Anders opened his mouth, but closed it again without saying anything. Cole was telling the truth; Fenris would protect him, for Hawke's sake. "Let's change the subject," he said with a small sigh. "So when Hawke gets back we can be one big happy family, and most importantly, all whole and not chopped up by templar swords."

Fenris looked at him, an eyebrow raised in lieu of a question, and Anders shrugged.

"I don't know. How about the inside of your head instead of mine? How was it, walking around in yours?"

Cole tugged on Anders sleeve. "Not just for Hawke's sake," he said.

Anders found that hard to accept. "Who else's? Well, his own, I suppose. I do have to patch him up a lot after battle."

"I'm sitting right here," Fenris pointed out.

"Yes, but you will never say it," Cole told him.

Fenris looked at him. "When people choose not to say something, that's because they don't want it said. Respect that."

"Still," Anders said, smiling wryly, "it's nice to know you care."

"I don't-" Fenris started but then exhaled noisily. "Just..."

Anders laughed. "For what it's worth, you're not so bad when you're not ranting about the evil of mages and so on. You don't do that so much any more. Have you noticed?"

"Hawke." Fenris said that and no more, but it was explanation enough.

"You're weirdly relaxed about the chantry explosion too," Anders pointed out. "I don't mean you approve, but you... don't seem to hold it against me the way some of the others do." The way he did himself, when he was feeling truthful. "I always thought it was because I'd finally lived down to your worst opinion of me. You weren't waiting for that shoe to drop any more."

"Something like that," Fenris said with a slight shrug.

"Two sides of the same coin. The collar closes around again, taken and trapped, no way out. Don't want to hurt, to kill, but I must. Freedom was a lie. It was always going to come to this." Cole paused and looked at each of them in turn. " _Both_ of you. You hurt them because you felt like you had no choice. It was wrong, but... The hurting... it made you stronger. Made you able to finally break away. Took the lie and made it truth. _Free_. You would never do that again."

"Both of us?" Anders repeated, feeling lost. He looked at Fenris. "Both of us?"

Fenris shared a scowl out equally between them. "Nobody's business but mine."

"He would understand," Cole said to Fenris. "If you told him. He knows what that feels like."

"What did you do?" Anders asked, surprised and not just a little bit curious. "Blow up some Tevinter magisters?"

Fenris winced. "No. The people I... killed did not deserve it. If you have to know, ask Hawke. I don't mind you knowing, not really."

"But you don't want to talk about it." Anders nodded. "Fair enough. How are you feeling now? Need a little more juice?" He offered a hand.

Fenris nodded. "I want to be ready to kill that demon when the time comes."

As Anders did his best to restore Fenris' sapped life energy, he asked, "So what did happen in your head? Was it like the Fade?"

"It wasn't like the Fade," Cole put in. "Not for him, not for me. Envy tortured, tried to twist him, wring him out like the wash, distil his essence until he knew enough to take his face." He paused. "It didn't work."

"He kept putting on... puppet shows. Made images of people, of me... doing things, showing me horrors to see my reaction and learn from it," Fenris said, staring into the middle distance. "It was infuriating... and disturbing." He snorted softly. "It _was_ a bit like the Fade though. Laws of nature held no sway."

"Sounds bloody awful," Anders said frankly.

"Heads aren't usually like that," Cole said. "I don't think. I don't usually end up inside of them."

Fenris looked at him. "Not something I ever thought I'd say to a spirit, or indeed anyone, but thank you for ending up inside mine. "

Cole smiled then, the expression seeming to transform his entire being. "I'm glad I could help."

"You did."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which new allies are made and old allies test their limits...

After a half hour of almost constant pitched fighting in what felt like every part of the redoubt, Hawke and the others made it back to the great hall with a huge chest of pure lyrium and more uncorrupted templars in tow. Leaving Cassandra and Varric to hand the chest over and make nice with the Order, Hawke instead made a beeline for the corner where he'd left Fenris and Anders with that spirit boy.

They were sitting on the floor together in a corner. Anders stood up immediately when he spotted Hawke's approach, clearly preparing himself for a good fuss, which he started as soon as Hawke was in touching distance.

"Kill lots of nice templars, did you? Whose blood is this?" he asked, moving Hawke's arm to investigate.

"I didn't get any of their names," Hawke said, letting Anders poke and prod at him, knowing he wouldn't relax until he could see for himself that Hawke wasn't injured. "But since they were all trying to kill me, proper introductions seemed uncalled for."

Fenris got to his feet too. "I'm ready to fight," he claimed.

He looked all right to Hawke's untrained eye, but many times in the past Fenris had claimed he was ready to fight when he was dangerously close to falling over dead, so Hawke looked to Anders for a corroborating opinion. "Is he?"

"Well..." Anders pulled a face. "He's better than he was. He'll be okay. Probably."

"I'm fine," Fenris insisted.

"You're always fine," Hawke pointed out. "Even when you're not." He turned and pointed at Anders. "And before you start, I know how hypocritical it is that I'm saying that to someone else."

Anders chuckled but then grew serious. "Let him fight, love. That demon put him through a lot."

That almost sounded like sympathy, and it made Hawke pause. How bad had things been to actually get Anders to react like that to anything that happened to Fenris? But faced with such an unlikely united front, Hawke had to give in. "It's not like I've ever been able to stop you from doing what you want anyway," he sighed. "Besides, I'll admit to feeling better for you fighting with me, than when you're sitting on the sidelines. I much prefer it when you're mad at the enemy instead of me."

That won a slanted grin from Fenris. "Are they taking the barriers down?"

"When they get all lyrium'ed up, yes, that's the plan." Hawke glanced over to where the templars were organising and parcelling out the lyrium they'd brought back. It was decidedly odd to look at them and think of them as allies when a lifetime's worth of instincts were still trying to insist they were a danger.

Speaking of potential dangers, there was someone missing. "Where's your little spirit friend?" he asked, slightly alarmed to find he couldn't even picture him in his head. Given what this Cole seemed to be able to do though, he supposed that he should be grateful that he at least remembered the boy's presence, even if he was having trouble remembering what he looked like. Aside from the large floppy hat. For some reason, _that_ he remembered.

Anders looked around. "Oh, he's gone again."

"He'll be back," Fenris said, sounding unbothered. "He's not 'little', Hawke. Standard human size."

"I'll have to take your word for that since I can't really remember what he looks like," Hawke said, a bit more pointedly than he'd intended.

Fenris frowned. "I'd hoped he wouldn't do that to you. I'll... talk to him."

Anders stepped back, seeming to have decided that none of Hawke's guts currently needed to be poked back in. "Stop fretting, love," he said. "Cole can be trusted with everything but our personal secrets."

Hawke looked back and forth between the two of them. "Are you two actually agreeing on something? Should I be worried?"

"I'm sure it won't last," Anders said with a short laugh, picking up his staff.

"We'll be back at each other's throats as soon as other, more urgent throats are dealt with," Fenris agreed dryly.

"It's downright unsettling," Hawke said, only half joking. Over the years he'd grown used to the fact that one of the constants of the world was that Anders and Fenris were always going to snipe at each other, even if he was no longer worried they'd actually try to kill each other.

"Do you _want_ us to shout at each other?" Fenris asked, now sounding mildly exasperated.

"Anything for you, love," Anders said with another short laugh. "Fenris, um... Oh, I know! See how easily the Templars fall to corruption. You were so convinced it was only mages that were easily perverted. What do you say now?"

Fenris rolled his eyes. "Are we really going to do this?"

"It loses something if you're only doing it to humour me," Hawke admitted. He waved a hand in an airy dismissive gesture. "Go ahead with your completely unnatural getting along. I'm sure I'll adjust."

A clunk of something heavy hitting the ground came from right behind him and had Hawke jumping and reaching for his staff as he turned around. Only to find it was that spirit, Cole, setting down a large crate of supplies. "I found potions!" he announced, reaching into the crate and handing one to Fenris. "They should help."

As Fenris took the potion and sniffed cautiously at it, Anders nudged the crate with the tip of his boot. "Made no doubt by Tranquil alchemists they have enslaved here. Or had. They probably handed them all over to the Venatori long before we got here. Poor bastards."

Fenris stared at him, looked backed down at his potion, then shrugged and drank it down. After wiping his lips, he said to Cole, "Please don't make any of my friends forget you."

Cole seemed to consider that. "Sometimes it just happens, eyes slide by me as I slip into shadows, but I will try and let them stick. I don't want to make it worse."

It was strange seeing Fenris interacting so calmly with a spirit, but he didn't seemed controlled or enchanted in any way. Hawke couldn't quite keep himself from trying to check for it though. Just in case.

Cole frowned suddenly and looked right at him. "I would never do that! I help. I only make people forget when fear might drown out the helping. It's to help, not hurt. I didn't understand at first with Fenris that forgetting was the fear. I do now. I won't do it again."

"I did mention the whole personal secrets no longer being secret thing, didn't I?" Anders said. "Cole is a definite believer in 'better out than in'."

Hawke regarded Cole for a long moment. There _was_ something about him, now that Hawke's eyes were 'sticking', that made Hawke want to believe him despite his initial distrust. It didn't feel like there were any ulterior, sinister motives behind what Cole was saying or doing, not like any demon that Hawke had ever seen or interacted with. There was an air of innocence about him, of purity of purpose even, that apparently had won over even Fenris.

"I believe you, Cole," Hawke finally said, letting go the worst of his suspicions.

"You still worry but not as much," Cole observed. "Thank you."

"Good." Fenris said looking between them. "Now can we kill that demon? The templars look ready."

Anders looked over at the templars who were kneeling in line, holding their swords. "What a target," he said quietly. "They'd never even know what hit them."

"Not now, mage," Fenris snarled and strode away down the hall to where the templars knelt.

"Try to remember we came here to rescue the Templars," Hawke said to Anders as they followed Fenris as a slower pace. "We're trying to win them over, not blast them apart."

"Do I look like I'm about to do any blasting?" Anders said, rather too loudly. "I was just making an observation. That's all."

"With entirely too much relish," Hawke told him, though really he'd be worried more if Anders hadn't been making such comments about Templars. It was when he grew quiet about such things that he was more likely to do something stupid. He looked around for Cole and caught sight of him slightly ahead of them, staying near Fenris. "Fenris definitely seems to have made a new friend," he observed.

"Cole saved him, kept him sane and directed, got him out of Envy's trap," Anders said much more quietly. "Maker forgive me, but I'm glad it wasn't you stuck in your head with a demon."

Hawke let out a long breath. "Not that I want to be stuck in my head with a demon, but I want even less for someone else to have endured that in my place. Especially when it's someone I care about." That guilt wasn't going away any time soon.

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't, but Fenris is glad it was him too. Just let him kill the demon and he'll be fine," Anders said as they arrived at the gathered templars and, beyond them, the barriers.

This close up, Hawke could feel the power the templars were pouring into suppressing the barriers; even not directed at him, he could feel it tugging on his own magic and found himself restlessly calling it to his hand in response. Just to make sure it was still there.

"Hopefully this won't take too long," he said. "I hate waiting."

"How considerate of these crystallised bastards to help us pass the time then," Anders said, lifting his staff.

Hawke quickly looked around. It seemed the barriers were one way only as a small horde of red templars was streaming through, heading for their uncorrupted brothers.

"Oh no, you don't," Fenris said and shot forward in a lyrium blur.

The fight went well for them, less so for their opponents. The red templars didn't go down easily by any means, but Fenris, Anders, Varric and Hawke had been fighting together for years, and it showed. A bit more unexpected was how well Cassandra and Dorian had fit into their rhythms, and Hawke took it as a good sign for the future if they were integrating so seamlessly already. And it did, as Anders had joked, help the time pass quickly because the next thing he knew the barrier was falling with a loud magical crash, and the streams of enemies trickled to a stop.

"Everyone take a moment to catch your breath," Hawke said, taking his own advice as he leant on the Key. "Then it's demon hunting time."

"I'm ready," Fenris said, having taken no moments at all. "The longer we delay the more opportunity we give the _kaffas re_ to somehow escape his due."

"Sorry to sound like the mother hen I often fear I'm becoming," Anders said, "But you're _not_ ready." He took hold of Fenris' arm, ignoring the half-hearted attempt to shrug his hands off. "You are, in fact, bleeding. Hold still."

"I don't need your magic, mage," Fenris growled. "I have potions now."

"For emergencies! This is not an emergency. Stop being a fool." Anders' hands sparked healing magic, closing Fenris' deep cut whether Fenris liked it or not. That particular argument was so familiar that it brought a grin to Hawke's face.

"They battle and bicker, quarrel and quibble, and it makes you think of happier times, of home." Hawke turned his head to the side to see Cole was standing next to him.

"As long as they have the energy and inclination to snipe at each other, things are generally still all right," Hawke said, something about the spirit's manner calming the suspicion he'd had about him earlier.

"Safe, secure, as long as we're all together, we can take on anything." Cole nodded. "They feel that way too. It's good."

"So happy to meet with your approval," Hawke said dryly. Anders was finishing up, and they were almost ready to move. "Are you joining us for the fight against Envy?"

"Yes," Cole replied, and the single word was cold enough that it sent a shiver down Hawke's spine. "I won't let him hurt anyone else."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Cassandra asked, having apparently overheard. "We don't know this... entity."

"He's the one who warned us about what was happening here in the first place," Hawke reminded her. "He arguably saved Fenris' life and sanity. That's more than enough to get the benefit of the doubt from me. Also, Fenris and Anders both trust him," Hawke told her. "Whenever they agree on something, I've found that it's in my best interest to listen. Besides," he continued, "not too long ago, you didn't know me either, and you still went into battle with me. Granted, I'm not sure we had much of a choice given the circumstances, but it all worked out, didn't it?"

"Perhaps we have as little choice now in a way," she said, sounding almost weary. "Very well."

"Enough delay!" Fenris had started pacing, never a good sign.

It was almost a given that the elf was going to be as overly reckless as he always was when he was this angry. He was good enough that usually it wasn't much of a drawback, but against something like Envy, it made Hawke worry.

Cole was looking at Hawke with a frown. Judging from things Cole had already said, Hawke was assuming he could read his mind, and so he very carefully and deliberately thought, _'Keep an eye on him.'._

He thought he caught an almost imperceptible nod in return before Cole disappeared in a puff of shadows.

Message either received or not, Hawke let it go for now and focused on the upcoming battle. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

Beyond the barriers, they quickly found doors leading to a large outdoors area. "He's here; I can feel him," Fenris said, striding forward to where a short flight of stone stairs led down. "Show yourself, demon!" he yelled.

As the others rushed to catch up, a voice reverberated around them. "I touched so much of you, but you are selfish with your glory. Now I am no one." With an inhuman screech, Envy appeared, seeming to climb out of the ground, too many long limbs held at unnatural angles. Its very appearance screamed that it was _wrong_.

It loomed up over Fenris, but then there was a puff of shadows, and Cole appeared, striding forward to place himself between them.

"Dark and desperate, death to make yourself alive. I used to be like you. I'm not any more. You shouldn't be either."

It sounded like an order, and they all seemed to react like it was. Envy screeched again and as one, they all attacked.

Either Envy wasn't expecting so strong a force allied against him, or they'd truly managed to herd him into a corner. Within moments of being blasting, slashed, stabbed and burnt, the demon vanished, prompting an enraged cry from Fenris.

"Coward! Don't you dare run!"

"It's trying to hide!" Cole declared, appearing momentarily beside Fenris again, holding two bloody daggers, his eyes sweeping the courtyard as he searched, then he disappeared into a puff of shadows again.

"Silence!" Envy's voice roared, disembodied. A number of red templars rushed into the courtyard, and they were momentarily distracted by the need to deal with them.

Just as the last of the templars fell, Hawke heard Envy scream in pain and spun around to see Cole just pulling his daggers out of its back and scampering away before it could target him.

Its appearance had changed, however. Now it looked like Fenris. Not entirely, and not well; if Hawke had had to describe it he would've said it looked like someone had started making a ten foot statue of Fenris out of clay and had stopped halfway through, but it was close enough to be incredibly disturbing. Hawke felt his own anger, which he'd been holding a tight leash on, start to get away from him at the sight, and he rained down fire and lightning on its head with every intention of destroying the thing utterly.

"See this?" Anders shouted as he magically flung a huge fist of masonry at the disguised Envy, "Dreams _do_ come true!"

Envy staggered but didn't fall. "I know your thoughts, Fenris," it taunted as Fenris ran in for an attack. "Every one!"

Hawke growled and slammed his own _stonefist_ into Envy with all the strength he could muster.

Still Envy didn't go down, but Hawke had succeeded at least at pulling its attention away from Fenris. "Herald. Hawke. The Elder One promised you to me," it said bitterly as it started walking towards where Hawke was standing. "Now no one will have you!"

"I beg to differ!" Anders said, healing... one of the others, Hawke couldn't take the time to check who, not with all of Envy's attention on him.

A shower of demonic ichor hit him as Fenris sliced off one of Envy's arms from behind. " _Fenhedis!_ Face me!"

Envy did, briefly, only to vanish again and reappear across the battlefield.

Just in time to have Cole appear behind him and sink both his daggers in deep enough to pull a scream of pain from Envy. It vanished again, reappearing on the platform in the centre of the courtyard, no longer the half made copy of Fenris, but back in its original shape.

After that, the fight seemed to have gone from Envy. He screeched and pawed, but was soon blasted down into an untidy collection of broken limbs.

Fenris lifted his sword high, yelled, and bought it down through the dead demon's neck. "Just to make sure," he said, breathing hard, the tip of his sword still resting in the spreading ichor.

"Everyone all right?" Hawke asked, looking around to find all of his companions and reassure himself they were all still standing. They all seemed battered and a bit worse for wear, but no one seemed in danger of bleeding out in the next minute, so he considered it a win.

They gathered closer to Hawke, Anders healing small wounds here and there.

"Is that it then?" Fenris asked. "Are we done?"

"There may still be pockets of the corrupted templars," Cassandra said, "but perhaps the uncorrupted ones could take care of that."

"Talking of which," Varric said, gesturing with his eyes back towards the hall where a small troop of templars and chantry sisters was approaching, led by Barras.

Hawke straightened, staff still in his hand as he eyed the approaching knights. "Hopefully, this is going to go well, but be ready just in case," he said in a low voice to his companions before walking over to meet the approaching knights.

Barras glanced over the area where they'd fought. "The demon is dead? Andraste be praised; she shielded you from its touch."

"The shielding was actually accomplished a little closer to home than that," Dorian observed, "but the gratitude for our continuing survival is appreciated."

Barras seemed to falter, glancing uncomfortably at Dorian. His gaze slid back to Hawke, but then ended focused on Cassandra. "We've numbers across Thedas, but we let this happen." He strode back to the rest of uncorrupted, talking to them as much as to Hawke's party. "Our officers either failed to see what was happening, or were complicit in it." He faced Hawke, making eye contact again. "The Templars stand ready to hear what the Inquisition needs of us."

Hawke relaxed his tense muscles slightly since it appeared that the defeat of their enemies had not suddenly turned them all, in the templars' eyes, back into apostates and apostate sympathisers that needed to be culled. He hadn't really thought that would happen, but he'd been menaced by templars so often in his past he hadn't been fully able to dismiss that worry.

Now he took his time about answering, watching the men and women in front of him, trying to put his own prejudices aside as he did so. They appeared to be sincere, and if they hadn't been templars, he wouldn't be looking so hard for reasons why they might not be. Maybe he shouldn't be, even though they were. He had, after all, met more than one templar who had been decent. Was it that much of a stretch to think that maybe that was more the rule than exception here?

He glanced back over his shoulder at the sky and the giant reminder of all he still had to do. He really couldn't afford to turn away potential allies just because others of their order had done so much harm to those of his kind.

He thought of Thrask and Cullen and his brother's namesake, and of how he'd seen these particular templars act during this crisis and found the words he was looking for. "There was corruption here, but I also see valour and honour in each of you who stood fast. Rise tall again. Help the Inquisition seal the Breach before it swallows us all."

"No!" Anders yelled pretty much into Hawke's ear. "You don't need them. Hawke, this is your chance to disband the Templar Order for good!"

"Here we go," Varric muttered under his breath, but still loud enough, apparently, for Hawke to hear him.

Anders' reaction wasn't surprising, but Hawke had hoped he'd wait until they were in private to voice it. He supposed he should've known better. "Hold that thought," he said to Barris, then dragged Anders a few steps away so he could at least pretend everyone wasn't trying to eavesdrop on them.

"This isn't the time, Anders," he said, keeping his voice low. "We need them."

"No, we don't! They're the last thing we need." Anders didn't fight Hawke's grip; he was too busy yelling in Hawke's face. "You really think they'll mesh well with the huge gang of rebel mages you've already persuaded to join us? You're asking for Haven to become the latest burnt out battleground in the war!"

"I'll put down anyone who tries," Hawke said steadily. A promise. "On either side. We've bigger things to worry about right now than mages and Templars sniping at each other. If we can't collectively pull our heads out of our arses and start working together, that hole in the sky is going to swallow us all." That nightmare future he'd visited loomed large in Hawke's mind as he shook Anders slightly, trying to get him to actually listen. "I've seen what happens then," he said voice breaking just a little on the words. "Everyone will suffer – mages, templars, our friends... you. I'll do whatever I have to, to stop it."

"No. No, love, no. Not with them. I've spent my whole life running away from those bastards. They don't see mages as human! Even Barras can't make himself properly look at you. They–" Anders seemed to gulp. He looked down, shaking slightly, and when he looked up, his eyes were _blue_ , and blue was glowing through cracks in the flesh of his face. " **Hawke**."

 _Shit_. "Justice," Hawke acknowledged, his entire body gone tense, bracing himself in case he had to stop an attack from either the nearby templars or from Justice himself. He was sure he wasn't the only one. "We're not going to have a problem here, are we?"

" **Yes**." Justice stood straighter than Anders' preferred posture, his shoulders back. " **There is a problem. Anders will not see reason on this. He is wrong.** "

Hawke blinked, not sure he heard that correctly. "Meaning... you agree with me?"

" **These men fought bravely and with honour, even though it meant killing their brothers at arms. They are worthy allies and should not be cast aside as if their sacrifice meant nothing**."

Now he knew the world was ending because Justice was agreeing with him, and Anders wasn't. "It means a lot," Hawke said. "And I'm not casting anyone aside." He took a deep breath and spoke to Anders, even though Justice was still in charge. "Anders, I promise you can yell at me all you want later for this, but _please_ , can you just trust that I know what I'm doing? _Me_ , not the Templars."

" **We will go a short way away and discuss this while you talk to the them.** " Justice started to turn and then paused. " **It is good to see clearly again,** " he said and then walked away towards where they'd killed Envy.

"Hawke?" Hawke looked around to see Varric with Fenris close behind. "What's going on?"

"Believe it or not, Justice being the voice of reason," he said, finding himself more bemused than worried. He was fairly confident now that things weren't going to explode. At least for the next few minutes at any rate.

Fenris frowned Justice's back. "Are they... separating?"

"I thought that wasn't possible," Varric said.

"Tangled, twisted together, but still two, no matter how close and confusing it gets," Cole's voice said, and Hawke looked over to see him standing by Fenris' shoulder. "It was more difficult in the place where the stones screamed of blood and blight. It's better here, even with the hole in the sky."

"Huh," Varric said and turned back to look at the templars. "Maybe we should make the most of the reprieve."

Hawke nodded. "Keep an eye on him," he bade in a low voice, before striding back over to where the templars were waiting. "Sorry about that," he told them, putting on his most charming manner. "Now where were we?"

Barris looked pained. "Does your offer still stand?"

"It does," Hawke confirmed. "Despite my... differences with some members in the past, I know that your order is a symbol that holds the people's respect. That can't die today." He took a deep breath and plunged forward. "We offer you an alliance – supplies, weapons, grounds to shelter you. All we ask is that you work with us _and_ our mage allies to help close the Breach."

"You've... allied with the rebel mages?"

"The war is over," Cassandra said, stepping forward. "The world has changed. Mages are no longer your enemies, and you are no longer theirs. No doubt there will be some on both sides who disagree. They will... learn. Our enemy is now the one who ripped the sky asunder, not each other."

Barris looked between her and Hawke. "You speak truths we never should have ignored, but the Order is leaderless, gutted by betrayal. I can speak for those remaining here, but not for the rest of the Order."

"I don't expect you to pledge for every templar out there, any more than I can pledge for every mage," Hawke said. "There are extremists on both sides, those that abused their power and those that have been abused so badly they can't let go of their anger enough to stop fighting. I'll do everything in my power to stop the former, but hopefully with enough time and effort at showing there is a different way, the latter will be convinced to join us as well. That is my most fervent hope, a dream I once thought impossible. I think you might have the power to help make it real."

Barris nodded once and then turned to face the other templars. "Do we accept the Inquisition's terms, brothers and sisters?" A general hubbub of cheers and ayes answered him. Barris turned back to Hawke. "The Templars will come. I hope your stronghold has space for... everyone."

"Oh, don't worry. We'll make sure there's enough bedrolls to go around," Hawke said, feeling a little giddy. He'd just talked the _Templars_ into joining his cause and agreeing to work with free mages. It was crazy.

***

By the time Anders was finally allowed to have control over his own body again, he was practically immobile anyway, with rage and hurt and just the whole _what the fuck_? of it all. Therinfal was already miles behind them back down the road. The deal with the Templars was a fait accompli, and Justice... Justice had betrayed him! After all they'd been through together, after everything...

Anders stopped walking and sat down on the nearest rock, arms folded and lips closely pinched, trying to hold back the storm brewing inside his chest.

Hawke noticed immediately because of course he did. He glanced over at Anders then spoke quietly to Varric before he strode over to where Anders was sitting. "Okay," he said, coming to a stop in front of him. "I promised you could yell at me later. It's later. Let me have it."

Anders just stared at him, feeling... like he wasn't really in the same literal place as Hawke. That he was somehow seeing his lover through someone else's eyes, not his own because he was miles and miles away, lost and alone.

Hawke raised an eyebrow. "Nothing to say? Really?"

"What's the point?" He heard his voice say the words and agreed with it. What _was_ the point? Between them, Hawke and Justice together – his two best friends in the world – had decided his opinion should not be heard when it mattered, so why bother expressing it now?

Hawke continued staring at him for another moment and then sighed. "If you're not going to talk, will you at least listen?"

"So you can sing the Templars' praises? No thanks. Already heard enough of that coming from my own blasted mouth." From Justice, who had never before taken the opposite opinion from Anders on the subject of Templars.

"You think I don't get how you feel?" Hawke asked. "You think I don't hate every templar that abused you or another mage? You think I don't want to track each and every one of them down and incinerate them where they stand?"

"No, I don't, Hawke. I don't think you get how I feel at all! Because what I feel is–" He stopped, bit his lip and looked down. He seemed to be back in his own body again, with Hawke, and he didn't like it much.

This just sucked giant mabari balls, didn't it? He should never have mentioned meeting Cole. Fenris had forgotten him by the time they got to Haven, and had Anders not been feeling generous, the Inquisition would never have known about the need to come to Therinfal at all.

The others were gathered out of earshot, all of them apparently finding something fascinating to stare at that wasn't him or Hawke. Anders stood and moved so his mouth was close to Hawke's ear. "Those templars? Soon as they find out for sure who I am, every single one of them will want to kill me. Haven already has enough folk who feel like that, but now... You want to know how I feel? I feel afraid. Petrified. Because I'm on my own now. I don't have you, and I don't have Justice. It's just me and how fast I can run, how cleverly I can hide, just like it used to be..."

Hawke made a sound of distress. "You will always have me, Anders, _always_. Anyone who wants to hurt you will have to get through me first. You know that." He reached out to grab onto his arms, as if he was going to pull Anders into an embrace, but he hesitated. "Please tell me you know that."

"You left me behind because the Conclave was too dangerous for me, or I was too dangerous for it. I was never sure which one. But then the sky ripped open, and you pulled me across most of Ferelden to join your Divine-ordained gang of do-gooders, most of whom were appalled to see me turn up. And can you blame them? Cassandra, Cullen, they know exactly what I did. My continued existence _hurts_ them. My continued existence hurts..."

He swallowed the rest of his words and looked away.

"Anders." He felt Hawke gently cup his cheek, callouses rough against his skin. "Your continued existence means everything to me. I left you behind because I wasn't certain I could protect you if we were discovered. But then everything went to shit, and I couldn't leave, and the idea of not seeing you or knowing you were safe..." He left his breath out in a soft puff of a sigh. "I literally couldn't sleep without having nightmares about losing you. So I was selfish and called for you. I'm sorry if being with me has brought you more pain."

Closing his eyes, Anders shook his head against Hawke's palm, wordlessly denying what Hawke had said. He needed to get control of himself, to swallow all this down again. His head was awash with unwanted thought and emotion, and Justice, who for so long had given him focus, inner fortitude, seemed to have taken a step back.

"You should have killed me that day in Kirkwall," he said quietly. "Everyone wanted you to. It was the only action that made sense."

"I would have sooner put a knife through my own heart," Hawke said, voice fierce. "It would've amounted to the same thing."

"And now I'm a millstone around your neck, pulling you down when even the bloody gods want to see you rise. I'm helping Corypheus just by existing; I don't even have to listen to his stupid fake calling to be on his side." Anders laid his head on Hawke's shoulder and just stood there, dragging in breath he wasn't even sure he still wanted.

He felt Hawke's arms wrap tightly around him. "That's not true. Far from it."

"It is, but... bless you for refusing to see it." He couldn't make himself move, not even to put his arms around Hawke in turn. "Hawke..." he started, but immediately lost the will to continue.

"What happened in Kirkwall..." Hawke began slowly, gingerly, as if each word had spikes, "what you did... I won't pretend it wasn't awful because it was, but you were right that something had to be done. Everything was so close to exploding that if we hadn't triggered it, something else would've, and I sincerely believe that that something could've been worse."

"Worse?" Anders pulled back to look Hawke in the eye. Could he really mean what he just said? "The only way things could have been worse is if my explosion had managed to kill you too. As it was, it was far greater than I'd intended, wrecking much of Kirkwall by the time the fighting was over, and it must have killed outright almost as many as the bloody Qunari had three years earlier. I don't know, maybe more? I don't know, Hawke. I don't know... I don't even know why I did it any more."

He stopped, shocked at the truth revealed in his own words, and turned away, escaping Hawke's arms. In the quietest of voices, he added, "I don't even know who I am."

Hawke laid a hand on his shoulder, but didn't try to pull him back into an embrace. "Do you want me to tell you?"

"You don't know me. You can't. You've never known just me."

"Just because I've always known you with Justice doesn't mean I don't know _you_."

"All I ever wanted was to be free. That, and maybe some nice sex once in a while, and a cat no one took away from me. And... well, that's it really. It's not that much to ask is it?" He shuffled back a little to lean against Hawke, needing his warmth and solidity.

"No, it isn't," Hawke said, wrapping his arms around him again with gratifying speed.

"Templars thought it was," he said pointedly. "Kept catching me, locking me up, taking my stuff away. They even joined the bloody wardens so they could pick on me." He snorted softly. "I killed them, you know. Never told you that, did I? The first thing Justice and I did when we merged was kill a bunch of templars." And the wardens who'd got in the way...

"You didn't have to. You told me enough. I figured it out." Hawke's breath was warm against his ear. "They deserved it."

"We could've been free of them, Hawke. A world where every mage could learn to use their gifts and still return home at night. Where no mother ever needed to hide her child..."

"That's still the goal. We'll get there." Hawke paused. "If I tell you my reasoning, are you able to listen to me now?"

"I'll... try." He put his arms over Hawke's where they circled his body.

"What's the one argument that is always used when people argue for the Circles and keeping mages imprisoned? It's the blood mage, the abomination, they tar every mage with the same tainted brush. They look at mages and see all of us as the worst of us. The worst do exist, and they need to be dealt with, but not at the cost of treating us all that way."

"We can deal with our own, Hawke." Anders shook his head. "The Templar Order was... _is_ a haven for sadists and rapists. You know that! It gave them permission to exercise their worst inclinations. It gave them approval!"

"That's the worst of them, like blood mages and abominations are the worst of us. The worst needs to be dealt with on both sides. But that's not every templar. They're not all Alriks and Merediths. There are Thrasks and Cullens and Carvers. The templars we helped save at Therinfal, the ones who fought alongside us, they seem closer to the latter than the former. If I acted like they were all potential Alriks, how would that make me any better than the Chantry condemning all mages because of a potential few?"

Anders took a deep breath and sighed it out, tightening his hands over Hawke's. "I know what you're saying, Hawke. I understood even before you said it, but while the Templar Order exists, even the good ones will see it as their holy duty to kill me."

"Then we change the Order," Hawke said. "We change them the same way we're changing a mage's path. Make them what they should've been all along – partners with mages when dealing with dark and hostile magics, not jailers. We have to, if anything lasting beside more bloodshed is going to come out of this."

"And you think this lot of templars will be prepared to change? Oh Maker, maybe they even might, when it's Andraste's own Herald telling them to." His head was hurting, all those holes and porous areas in his skull felt sore and stuffed. Almost without thinking, he healed himself. "Justice likes them, or thinks them worthy of respect. Getting away from Kirkwall... things are more different within me than I realised. I'm... not sure I like it."

"You want to know what I see?" Hawke asked, but this time didn't give Anders a chance to answer before continuing. "I see less overlap between you and Justice, you're both becoming more distinct, more separate. You're right that I never knew you before Justice, but I'm pretty sure that's what I'm getting more and more glimpses of, and that's not a bad thing, Anders, far from it."

"I can't hide from myself any more." He leant his head back, turning slightly to nuzzle against Hawke. "Hawke..."

"I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere." Hawke's voice had grown softer and deeper, a rumble in his chest that Anders could feel.

"I'm so tired of running, of needing to run."

"So we stop running. We change things so we don't need to – that no mage needs to run any more. I think we might finally be in a position to really do that." He felt the soft huff of Hawke's chuckle more than heard it. "After we take care of certain pesky details like keeping the world from ending, at least."

"You do have an ace in your hand so to speak." Anders smiled softly to himself and turned around in Hawke's arms. "Think carefully before answering this" he said, lifting his hands to Hawke's face. "Do you want me to go safely back to our hidey hovel? Saving the world _is_ rather important, isn't it? And you're the only one who can do it. And if those bar– If I were to die, could you still do it? Could you still work with these Chantry types like you need to?"

Hawke didn't answer right away, although he was obviously thinking about it, given how tense he'd suddenly become. "If I lost you..." he swallowed hard before continuing. "I'm not selfish enough to let the world burn down just because mine has ended, though I can't say I wouldn't be tempted. I'd do what I had to, to save it. I'd wait until after to self destruct." His eyes flicked up and met Anders'. "But I can't decide for you. Do you want to leave?"

"I don't want to die of a templar blade sticking into places it has no right to; my soul couldn't take the irony." Anders managed a ragged laugh. "I'd have to come back and haunt... pretty much everyone. But if you think for one minute I would leave you alone to face this god-given burden if you want me to stay, then you really _don't_ know me."

Hawke let his breath out in a long sigh. "I don't want you to go. It's selfish and stupid, and if something does happen to you I would never forgive myself, but I need you here. I'm just better when you're with me."

"Maker knows why," Anders muttered, "but good. Because without you... there really is no point."

"Lucky thing I'm not planning on going anywhere," Hawke said, finally with his usual confidence, smiling as he leant in for a kiss.

***

" _Avanna_ , Pavus," Fenris said as he ducked out of his tent into the night air. It seemed the mage couldn't sleep again either.

"Fenris," Dorian greeted him cautiously. "I was wondering if you'd grace me with your company. I figured sleep might be difficult to come by after today's events."

"I think Anders gave me too much 'juice' as he called it," Fenris said, walking over to stand by Dorian. "Rest seems far away."

"A bottle or two of wine will often cure that," Dorian observed. "Too bad we're in the middle of the wilderness and therefore entirely too dry. What I wouldn't do for a bottle of Agreggio Pavali right now."

"When I assumed possession of the house Danarius or his agents had been staying at in Kirkwall Hightown, it came with a cellar of the stuff. I developed a taste for it myself." He chuckled. "So much so I rather wished I hadn't smashed so many bottles before developing it."

"You smashed bottles of Agreggio?" Dorian asked, hand over his heart and his face the very definition of overblown – and overacted – dismay. "I am shocked and outraged. Such a callous act of violence on a poor defenceless vintage."

"It was a symbolic sacrifice."

Dorian sighed. "Well, I suppose if the wine belonged to Danarius, destroying it was appropriate. Though drinking it would've been more poetic and less wasteful."

"I came to that conclusion in the end." Fenris tipped his head, looking up at the stars, It was a very clear night. "Perhaps we can persuade the Inquisition that it's an essential item they need to import." Even as he said it, he remembered all the very good reasons not to enjoy the wine. Reasons he'd reminded himself of frequently back in Kirkwall before his supply of the wine ran out. Like every Tevinter export, Agreggio wines were the product of slave labour. Perhaps Orlesian wine would be less ethically challenging.

"A cause I would be more than willing to lend my considerable charm to. Though you're the one with the close personal ties to the Herald so you might have a greater chance at persuasion than I." Dorian paused, and Fenris could feel his gaze on him. When he spoke again, it was in a softer, more genuine tone. "Are you... all right? Today's events could not have been easy for you."

"You mean being trapped in my head by a demon wanting to become me? It was... interesting." He turned to look back at Dorian. "I think I handled myself a lot better than the last time something like that happened to me."

Dorian's eyebrows went up. "That's happened to you before?"

"Not exactly, but... Hawke was once asked to help a young mage, a half-elf he'd aided before. The boy was a, uh, a somniari. He'd got himself stuck in his dreams, and the keeper of the local Dalish feared he was going to get himself possessed. With her help, Hawke, Anders, Varric and I entered his dreams to try to prevent that. I don't know why Hawke thought it was a good idea to include me, and I quickly showed him that it hadn't been a good idea at all."

Fenris wasn't sure why it was easier to tell this shameful tale than talk about today, but for some reason that was the case.

"The demons that were after the boy targeted you." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. They didn't even try that hard, and I still... turned." He stared out into the night, remembering the shame he'd felt upon wakening.

"The last time I was in the Fade I met a marvellous desire demon," Dorian said. "We chatted and ate grapes and generally had a wonderful time until he tried to possess me. That's the danger of demons. All of them are masters at temptation, at finding the chink in the armour that will let them wriggle their way in. It's what they do. I've been trained all my life at how to control my magic and how to recognise and resist demons, and still there was a part of me that wanted what it was offering."

"I had been so arrogant about mages, how easily they seemed to fall to blood magic and possession," Fenris admitted. "It forced me to realise that anyone could be that vulnerable. Of course, it only made me hate magic more."

"Why wouldn't it? You have hardly had the most positive of experiences with magic and mages, after all. No one could blame you for harbouring a certain resentment towards them. Even if it means you harbour irrational feelings of hate for someone as marvellous as myself."

Fenris laughed, tipping his head back. "You're certainly unique."

Dorian smiled, far more genuine than what Fenris was used to seeing from him. "I knew I would win you over. No one can resist my charms forever."

Suddenly Fenris vividly remembered seeing Dorian struggling in slave silks and chains. Just how deep in his mind had that _kaffas re_ demon had to go to pull that one out? Swallowing, he looked away. "Toth is higher here than in the north" he said, referring to the constellation and realising as he did just how bland he sounded.

"There are a lot of things that are different here than back home," Dorian said cautiously after a brief silence.

"Is it strange for you," Fenris started after another silence, "to see Hawke and Anders?"

"I... don't know if 'strange' is the right word," Dorian answered, somehow seeming both more guarded and open at the same time. "They are... extraordinary."

"Heh. That's one word for them. I meant..." He sighed, wondering if he was about to drop Hawke in it. "I heard you left Tevinter because your father wanted you to marry... a woman, that is."

Dorian sighed irritably. "They also can't keep a secret apparently. Though to be fair, I guess I never said it _was_ a secret." He looked at Fenris for a long moment before sighing again. "Yes, it's true. I not only have depraved urgings, but I am selfish enough not to want to hide them. A living breathing walking scandal for House Pavus. Not exactly what my parents had bargained on when they had me."

"Depraved yearnings shared by many of the hypocrites in the Magisterium," Fenris growled, feeling unaccountably angry. "But they'd rather impose their desires on slaves who can't say no than be honest about it." He took a deep breath and released it, trying to let the useless anger go.

"I've never, you know," Dorian said, his tone still conversational, but there was something more intense just underneath. "Forced my desires on a slave. "

"If you had, you wouldn't still be alive to tell me that," Fenris said, ignoring the little voice inside him asking how he would've known. He just would. "For what it's worth, I share your proclivities. I wasn't sure to start with. I thought it was just... conditioning." He shook his head, trying to clear an image of Hawke's face the night Fenris had walked out on him. "Anyway, it's not considered 'depraved' here."

Dorian was looking at him like he was a puzzle he was trying to put together. "Fenris, just what are you trying to say here? Because I may be completely wrong – and I probably am – but it sounds like you're working up to propositioning me."

"What?" Fenris stared at Dorian in something like horror as he both physically backed up and went back over what he'd just said in his head. "I... I was attempting to be reassuring, to say that things were different here, that you didn't need to–" He stared at the ground. "You're a handsome man, Pavus, but I... I couldn't. Not with–" He stopped himself before he could make things even worse.

"Stop before you hurt yourself," Dorian told him, and there was enough humour in his voice to make Fenris look up to see Dorian giving him another of those small, genuine smiles. "I didn't think you were aware of what it sounded like, but I wanted to make sure. For what it's worth, I find you a handsome man as well, but I understand how... awkward it could make things. To say the least. Anyway, I think I would much rather work on becoming your friend than bedding you as pretty as that image may be."

To have a Tevinter altus as a friend? Was that even possible with his past? Fenris said nothing for a few moments, letting the sense of relief that he hadn't mortally offended Dorian sink in and quite determinedly not thinking about words such as 'bedding' and 'handsome'. "I would like to try that" he said slowly. "If you have the patience."

Dorian's smile grew into a full fledged grin. "If our past interactions are anything to go by, I think you will have to be the one with the patience. Though the fact that you haven't started glowing or threatened to rip my heart out even once during this conversation, gives me hope," he said cheekily.

"Didn't we just establish that I don't want to be inside you?" Fenris asked, trying to keep his tone light.

That surprised a laugh out of Dorian. "Oh, you are glorious. I have a feeling being friends with you is going to be a surprising amount of fun."

Fenris wasn't sure which seemed the more unlikely, him being glorious, or him being fun. "I try," he said wryly. Very wryly.

"I'd say we should seal this friendship by sharing a drink if there was anything vaguely alcoholic in this camp. Though I suppose we could find some empty bottles of some sort and smash them instead."

"Ha!" The thought of waking everyone with smashing glass was strangely amusing. "We could try to get drunk on Cole's potions if you like. I know alcohol of some kind is used as a base in many of them."

Dorian's wide-eyed expression in response to that was equal parts gleeful and horrified. "We drink that many rejuvenation potions, we're liable to not sleep for at least a week!"

"I'm not sure I was planning to do too much of that anyway," Fenris said, part grinning in response to Dorian's exaggerated expression.

"That," Dorian pointed at him dramatically, "is probably something you shouldn't admit to the others when they find us surrounded by empty potion bottles and very very wide awake."

"I have the perfect excuse," Fenris said, wondering if they were really going to do this. "I'll claim the demon left me more depleted than I'd realised. What's yours going to be?"

"I'm an evil mage from Tevinter," Dorian said as dramatically as possible, wriggling his fingers for effect.

"Shouldn't your twirl your moustache when you say that?" Fenris said and laughed.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new stability is sought...

Varric frowned. Just what in the Void had gone on out here during the night? He toed the empty vials with his boot and then looked around. The camp was empty of people that weren't still tucked up in their tents apart from a couple of Inquisition scouts. He was about to call over to see if they could explain the mystery, when he saw Hawke just emerging from his tent.

Varric whistled quietly to get his attention and nodded towards the ground at his feet.

Hawke wandered over and blinked down at the empty bottles for a moment. "I really don't want to know," he finally decided.

"I got up to start our breakfast cooking, but... yeah, you're right. Best not to know." He knelt down and started putting the empty vials back in the crate. "So, eventful day yesterday," he said leadingly.

"We have far too many of those," Hawke observed as he went over to poke at the remains of last night's fire. He added a bit more wood to the fire pit and then with a wave of his hand, set it ablaze.

"Hawke, I've seen you bored," Varric said with a grin as he stood. "Far better for everyone when you have things to occupy your mind."

Hawke considered that for a beat. "Point taken," he finally said. "Still, between me being bored and me having to deal with stopping the end of the world, I feel we should be able to find some middle ground somewhere."

"Agreed," Varric said, investigating what was left of last night's nug stew. "So how are you?"

"Oh, I'm just fine," Hawke said, with excessive sarcasm. "We almost lost Fenris yesterday to that demon who was after me. I made an alliance with the Templars of all people, and Anders is terrified they're going to kill him, when he's not having some kind of delayed reaction to what he did back in Kirkwall. Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"Is that what the post-fight drama was about? His guilty conscious catching up with him?"

Hawke winced at that description and looked away, staring at the fire he was tending. "He said he was hurting people just by existing. He said I should've killed him."

"Sodding stupid thing for him to say to you," Varric said, suddenly feeling cross. "He does pick his times, doesn't he?" He was going to have a word with Blondie later, when Hawke wasn't close enough to hear. Point out a few things that shouldn't need to be pointed out, that all pretty much boiled down to Hawke having more than enough on his plate already.

"I don't think he chose for everything to start catching up to him now," Hawke defended him because of course he did. "It wasn't like he was just saying things to be dramatic – I've seen him be dramatic, this wasn't that. This was more..." He trailed off, running a hand through his already messy hair in frustration. "I don't know. It wasn't what I had been expecting anyway."

"The only time I've seen Justice as calm as yesterday was when we were in the Fade in that lad's dreams," Varric said, trying not to make assumptions about what that meant.

"Same here. And he's never agreed with me over Anders. Especially back in Kirkwall, when I was 'the distraction'." Hawke crooked his fingers into quotes around the phrase.  

The stew remnants would make a good enough base for some savoury porridge, Varric decided. "So what does that mean? What's happening with him?"

"I have a theory." Hawke looked over at him. "It might sound crazy. Of course crazy's kind of the norm with us, so..."

"So share the crazy," Varric said with a wry smile before starting to rummage for the bag of grain he knew they had somewhere.

"I think they might be separating," Hawke said. "Not all the way and I'm pretty sure it's not conscious on either of their parts, but... there doesn't seem to be as much bleed over happening either way – Anders' feelings to Justice or Justice's... singlemindedness to Anders. The way they were in Kirkwall, especially at the end, but even when we first met, they were a lot more tangled up with each other than they should've been. I don't know if that had to do with Anders' state of mind when Justice merged with him, or with the whole bad vibes thing Kirkwall has going. Maybe both, but that seems to be changing."

"And Justice is coping with that better than Blondie?" Varric found the grain bag and straightened up.

"You could say it that way," Hawke said. "But I think it's just that Anders is enough of himself _to_ cope. Kirkwall... he's always been very firm about what he did – that it was necessary and in the long run it would help mages. Period, full stop. The horror of it has never really seemed to sink in – Justice's influence, I'm sure." He shrugged. "Until yesterday. That was the kind of reaction I'd been expecting from Anders right after it happened and never got. It's like he's finally himself enough to feel all the things he hadn't before."

And that? Didn't sound like fun at all. Varric poured a few handfuls of grain into the pot and then looked around to see if they had any water left from the trip to the river last night. They didn't. "Hey, Hawke, can you make me some ice and melt it in here?" he asked, coming over to the fire.

"Happy to be of service," Hawke said, giving Varric an overly extravagant bow, then pointed a finger at the pot, which suddenly filled with ice. He then flipped his hand over and waved it, and steam rose from the pot as the ice melted quickly.

"Nice," Varric said, and after stirring it all together, he fixed the pot to hang above the fire before coming to stand beside Hawke. "So. Is he going to need help dealing with this?"

"Honestly?" Hawke said, staring into the fire. "I don't know. What he did... that's a lot to carry when you no longer have a spirit's surety that it was just and necessary. For a while, the guilt almost got to me, and I wasn't the one who..."

"Yeah." Varric rubbed a hand over his face. "Well, him freaking out about this does prove something..."

Hawke turned his head to look at him. "Which is?"

"He would never have blown up the chantry had he been himself. Just himself."

"I... thought we knew that already?" Hawke said slowly. "Or am I the only one who's been blaming Justice's influence, and whatever being in Kirkwall was doing to him?"

Varric frowned, looking up at Hawke. "None of us met him before Justice, so how could we know?"

Hawke frowned right back. "Things didn't get really bad with him and Justice until that last year, when everything was already falling apart, even without what they did. We had years to get to know Anders before that. I thought you were friends, at least before..."

"I never said I wasn't a friend!" Why were they having this conversation again? "I just meant that a Blondie completely free of Justice is someone none of us here know. We can, uh, extrapolate, if that's the word, and Isabela told us some... stuff I'd rather not have heard, but we don't _know_."

"I do," Hawke insisted. "Maybe I've never had the pleasure of Anders' company without Justice looking over his shoulder, but I _know_ him."

"All right," Varric said, not willing to fight that point as it could very easily be true. "Either way, he's going to need help now. Guilt fights a slow war of attrition. You get more and more weary of carrying the weight, and one morning you find you just can't get up." Maker knew, he was starting to feel the truth of that one himself, especially after their time at Therinfal.

"Tell me about it," Hawke muttered, then frowned and looked at Varric more closely. "Why do I get the feeling we're not just talking about Anders any more?"

"Ah, stop doing that, Hawke," Varric said, pulling a face. Sometimes his friend was just too perceptive. "We _are_ talking about Anders. We can deconstruct my hang-ups another time."

"Fine, but only because it's probably better to deal with one person's personal crisis at a time." He leant in and put a hand on Varric's shoulder, holding his gaze seriously. "But if it starts getting too much, or you just need someone to talk to..."

"Then I'll talk to someone else. And don't give me that look. You're having to cope with more responsibility than one man should ever have to shoulder. I've no intention of adding to the load."

Hawke was indeed giving him that look. "Just because I'm having to deal with stopping the world from ending doesn't mean I don't have time or strength to deal with helping my best friend. You need to talk to someone, you talk to me. Maker knows you've listened to my hang-ups enough."

"You need to learn to delegate, my friend." The breakfast pot was starting to boil; Hawke had obviously made the melted ice very hot. Varric gave it another good stir. "Run your life like a business until things calm down again."

"Varric, in all the time you've known me, when has my life ever been calm?" Hawke asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"There's been moments." He chuckled. "A precious few."

Hawke smirked at him. "Like you said, I don't do well with boredom." He turned serious again. "I know I have to prioritise things, but you're always going to be a priority. Talk to _me_ , okay?"

"All right, Hawke. I'll talk if I have to." Which he had no intention of ever allowing to be the case. "What's the next priority when we get back to base? Trying to corral the mages and templars to power you up? Won't one lot just cancel the other lot out?"

"Only if we aim them at each other," Hawke said, accepting the change of subject easily enough. "It's all in how you use them. Mages have magic, templars suppress it. Hopefully the mages will be able to 'power me up' while the templars try to suppress the magic of the Breach, make it easier to deal with."

"And a big line of innocent Inquisition forces in between the two groups as a preventative," Varric said with a wry grin. "I don't envy whoever it is who has the job of local policing at Haven. Though if we can pull this off, it'll be great for business – the Inquisition ended the Mage-Templar War!"

"Making up for the Herald and his lover helping start it?" Hawke quipped with a version of his usual smirk that looked a little forced. "I hope so. There's still plenty of time for this all to blow up in our faces though."

Varric poked at the thickening contents of the pot. It didn't look encouraging. Shame Hawke couldn't magic up flavour. "I'm starting to miss the Hanged Man's 'Mystery Stew', and I never thought that would happen."

"We all have to make sacrifices to save the world," Hawke told him, clapping him on the shoulder.

A groan was heard from a nearby tent, and Varric looked over to see Anders crawling out, looking pale and red-eyed, his hair a mess. "What's that horrid smell? It better not be breakfast."

Varric sighed heavily. "It's not my fault we ate all the good rations on the way there."

"Cheer up," Hawke said, walking over to Anders and dropping a quick kiss on his lips. "I'm almost entirely sure it's at least edible. Which is more than I can say about some meals we've had in the past. Remember that time we were stranded by that rock slide halfway up Sundermount, and Merrill made that stew entirely out of roots and mushrooms?"

Anders held his stomach and moaned. "Don't remind me."

"Even that could've been worse," Hawke said. "None of us accidentally walked off a cliff, and it wasn't like Merrill was trying to poison us on purpose. She swore up and down after that she didn't know those mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties on humans." He smiled a little as he reached up to brush Anders' hair back from his face fondly. "And you were kind of hot with giant butterfly wings, even if they were only in my head."

That seemed to pull a smile from Anders. "You were very... benign, if I'm remembering clearly. Sitting there, beaming at everyone."

"I was stoned out of my head," Hawke chuckled. "And everyone looked so... interesting."

"Shame I missed that trek," Varric said in as insincere tone as he could manage. "Talking about such things, Blondie, is the queasy look by any chance connected to recreational potion use?"

Anders looked quizzically at him. "They can be used recreationally? That explains so much about apothecaries. They're all so... unpredictable."

A loud groan came from another tent. Dorian poked his head outside, looking far from the put together mage that Varric was used to seeing. His hair was a mess, each side of his moustache was sticking in a different direction, and the kohl he wore around his eyes was smeared halfway down his cheek. " _Vishante kaffas_ , is it morning already?"

"Well, that answers that question," Varric said with a snort. "Maker's breath, Sparkler, you look worse than Blondie here."

Anders' eyes widened, and he immediately started smoothing down his hair muttering, "You could have told me..." to Hawke.

"I like you rumpled," Hawke replied with a grin.

"Word to the wise," Dorian said, running a hand over his face and smudging his kohl even more. "Things that sound like a brilliant idea in the darkest part of the night, rarely turn out to be in the harsh light of day."

"Potions?" Varric asked with a grin that was probably a little cruel.

"It seemed an excellent idea at the time," Dorian said, still showing no signs of actually moving from his position sprawled still half in his tent. "We didn't have any wine you see." He shifted a little, then winced. "Ouch."

Varric peered to see what had caused the 'ouch', and his eyes widened as he first saw a mop of white hair, and then the rest of the elf clambering over Dorian. He opened his mouth to say something and found he didn't have a clue what to say, so he looked at Hawke instead.

Hawke looked equally dumbfounded, but then he grinned. "I wasn't expecting you to take my advice about getting to know Dorian better quite this far," he said to the elf.

Fenris gave Hawke a filthy look as he straightened up, revealing that he looked almost more dishevelled than Dorian. "Nothing you are imagining happened." He paused and suddenly seemed less certain. Looking down at Dorian near his feet he asked, "Did it?"

"Where's the other half of your armour?" Varric asked, all innocence.

Dorian climbed the rest of the way out of the tent and stood up, suddenly all poised and proper, in spite of the continuing state of his hair and kohl. "I can assure you that if something were to ever happen, you would remember it," he told Fenris. "I am extremely memorable."

Fenris stared at Dorian then suddenly seemed to spasm or hiccup. He put his hand to his mouth. Varric was about to tell him to spew away from the tents when he realised the elf was laughing.

Anders, by this time, had turned around again to see what all the fuss was about. "Well," he said and just left it at that.

"You've got a little..." Hawke said to Dorian, gesturing at his face.

Dorian looked blank for a moment; then his eyes widened in horror.

"Memorable," Fenris repeated, apparently trying to keep his face straight. "Yes."

Dorian practically dove back into his tent. There was some loud rustling and a couple of thuds that would've probably been crashes in something that wasn't made out of canvas, followed by a brief silence then a string of cranky sounding Tevene which Varric would bet money was all swearing.

"He's taking this well," Hawke observed with a smirk.

Still trying to repress a grin, Fenris looked over at Varric. "That's burning," he pointed out.

"What? Aw, shit." Elf nose had sniffed out what dwarf nose missed. The breakfast had started to boil dry, the grain having absorbed all the water that hadn't steamed away.

Varric removed the pot from the fire and placed on the ground. "Breakfast's up," he said dryly. "Get it before it gets down to the black bits."

***

So many people, so much chaos. Cole slipped silently through the throngs that gathered on the outskirts of Haven to witness and welcome the return of the Herald-Hawke and his companions. Mostly the Herald-Hawke though, him being bright and bold in people's minds. Chosen, Champion, his presence made them hope and hushed their worst fears.

With the crowd's focus on Hawke, they barely noticed the others. They probably wouldn't have seen Cole even if he hadn't been trying to stay a shadow.

He watched as the group broke up and for a moment he hung, unsure which way to go. There was so much fear and sadness and pain around him, though still better, cleaner somehow than what had been at Therinfal with the templars. He could help here, he was certain, in a way he really hadn't been able to back there. But where to start?

In the end, it wasn't really a hurt to soothe that called to him the strongest, but a flit of the familiar, a fragment of almost forgotten feeling. Fenris. He had been concerned for Cole, had been happy and relieved to see him. Cole couldn't help but wonder if he would be again here.

Fenris was walking by some tents in the lowest area of Haven when Cole caught up with him. He spotted Cole immediately and his smile was matched by a warmth inside him. "Cole. I'm glad you came here."

Warmth winded its way through his own body at that, and Cole found himself smiling. "You're happy to see me!" It wasn't a familiar feeling, not stuck to him. People feared or forgot, or both. This was new.  

"Of course. Why shouldn't I be? After what we went through together..." Fenris frowned. "Have people here not been happy to see you so far?"

Worry. For him. That was... wrong. He shouldn't be making Fenris fear for him. "They don't see me," Cole said, trying to assuage the anxiety in the elf that echoed in him. "Or if they do, they forget. It's better that way."

He felt denial wash through Fenris, but it was quickly followed by denial of denial. "Sometimes I feel like that too," he said.

Automatically Cole reached for that feeling and the memories attached. They moved through his mind, flitting and flowing, many more than Fenris should feel, but one stood out, practically shouting to Cole. "Bitter betrayal. Fury and fear block out everything. How could she bring _him_ here? She stares up at me, shivering, shaken, scared. _Sister_."

Fenris looked away. He hadn't liked hearing that. "Family feeling, loyalty, those are currencies of the free. I prefer not to talk about her, Cole."

This was a hurt that ran deep, fissures that ran the length of Fenris' very soul. Cole couldn't help but reach out, trying to find something that would soothe, but the solution stayed stubbornly beyond reach. It was harder with Fenris. He had promised not to make him forget. So he had to choose his words much more carefully than normal because he couldn't start over if he got it wrong. There were some glimpses of thoughts, feelings, words, things that might help, but Cole wasn't certain enough of them to try.

"I'm sorry," he said. It felt inadequate. He wrung his hands, unable to keep his agitation at not being able to help from affecting his body. Should he slip into smoke and shadows before he made things worse?

Now Fenris was studying him. "What's wrong?

"I don't know how to help," Cole said honestly. "I think... if I try I might make it worse."

"Sometimes there is no way to help." Fenris rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "My sister... I've done all I can for her. That bridge is burnt. It hurts you, doesn't it? When you can't help?" He smiled slantedly. "Hawke's like that too."

"He is helping," Cole said, remembering how the people had reacted earlier. He caught a glimpse of something else from Fenris. "And you help him," he said, all certainty to answer the doubt he'd discovered. "He loves you, still. Different than it might have been, but no less strong or enduring for that."

Fenris' reaction to that was closer to pain than the reassuredness Cole had hoped for. "This thing you do," he said, his expression wincing, "when you dredge up old pain from people's minds. You should be more cautious. People will get angry or embarrassed. They'll take it out on you."

"It's how I help," Cole said. He looked for the words to explain. "I start by listening. I hear hurt, feel it fretting. Some you can solve by giving something – food, a blanket, sleep. Some are intangible, terrible tangles that catch on a crack. Fixed, festering, and the person makes a pearl of pain. I shake it loose. No pearl, no pain. They can hope, they can heal." He grimaced, knowing that despite his best efforts, that hadn't been what he'd managed with Fenris. "I'm... usually better at it, and if I get it wrong, I can usually make them forget and start again. But I promised you no forgetting."

"Thank you for keeping that promise." Fenris frowned, his thoughts complex. "Have you ever watched a cat hunt a mouse?" he asked after a few moments?

"Cats swat my feet even when no one else can see me," Cole said. Cats were very strange creatures.

"Have you watched one hunt?"

"Slow and stealthy, stalking silently, crouch and ground, push and pounce," Cole said, remembering the cat he watched sometimes at the Spire.

"Yes." Fenris nodded. "If a cat ran straight at a mouse, the mouse would run away. The cat has to move slowly, getting steadily closer, maybe changing its angle of approach before pouncing. That's what you need to do when trying to help people's pain. Approach it slowly, carefully, and change tacks if it looks like the prey's about to flee." He stared at Cole, his brow creased as inside he wrestled with doubt about his ability to communicate such a concept.

Cole thought he understood. "Like how I fight? Slip into shadows, sneak and spot, then daggers in the dark, but duck and dodge if they might see." He looked at Fenris. "Don't make them forget their fear, but be slow and stealthy so not to scare them in the first place. Like a cat."

"You understand. Good." Fenris' simple pleasure at having been understood was gratifying.

"Some hurts have to dealt with head on," Cole said. Those were usually the ones that needed healing the most, the ones where to help he had to hurt first. Though... maybe he didn't? He remembered when he thought he could only help by hurting, killing. He didn't see back then that there were other ways to help, that the hurt could be healed. It was wrong and he had learned better, but what if he was still wrong now? What if he was hurting when he didn't have to?

"Some," Fenris agreed. "Ones like demons trapping people in their heads, or if others might be hurt if you don't act quickly. Most don't though. Most hurts happened in the past and have built up layers of other rubbish on top of them over the years. It pays to dig through trash carefully." He paused and then asked, "Do you eat?"

The question forced Cole from his fretting. "No," he said, feeling his nose wrinkle in distaste at the thought.  

"So not a real boy yet," Fenris said with a smile.

"I'm not a real boy at all," Cole said with a frown. "The old Lord Seeker called me a demon. I think... maybe I was. But I'm trying not to be. I don't want to hurt people. That's why I went to Therinfal so the Templars would stop me if I slipped, fell to felling. But then they fell instead."

"You're nothing like any demon I've ever killed, and with Hawke as a friend that means a large number. They were all... monstrous." Fenris' head was full of images upon images of battles against demons – all sorts of them, the big and powerful and the small and weak. Some that had names that even Cole had heard of in the Fade.

"No, I am not like those," Cole agreed. "They enjoyed the hurting. I only hurt to help. I didn't know there was another way. I'm glad you killed them."

"You were never a demon," Fenris said with certainty. "Just... confused. Can happen to anyone." Humour ran through him as he added, "It's practically a necessary qualification if you want to become Hawke's friend."

"Thank you." No one had ever told him that before. He still thought he might have been, but Fenris' certainty... helped. It reminded him of Rhys helping him to see things more clearly.  

"You're welcome. You may not need to eat, but I want to consume something that hasn't been cooked by Varric. You can come with me to the mess tent if you'd like. If that won't be too much for you." Fenris paused, frowning. "There's going to be a lot of anger there, from the opposite sides in the recent war."

"Yes," Cole agreed, tapping into the feelings around him. It wasn't hard, there was so much _feeling_ and all of it loud. "Anger and fear, both from the war and before the war. Can't go back, won't go back. Won't be caged again. Magic unfettered and free can ruin the world. It has, just look up at the sky. Unease at seeing so many mages roam free. Unease at seeing the old familiar armour, but a strange feeling of safety too. They saved me when the village would've stoned me. Took me to the Circle where I was safe. The Circles are broken because they didn't work. We were supposed to protect, I thought that's what we did, but now I'm not so sure. There's got to be a better way."

"Lot's of work for you here," Fenris commented. "Don't run yourself ragged. You can't help anyone if you're exhausted."

"I don't get tired. Not like a person." Cole stopped then as something dawned on him. "You want me to stay."

"Of course. We're friends, and you have skills that could benefit what Hawke's doing here. Did you have somewhere else to go?"

Friends? Cole stared at him, looking for the lie, but Fenris really seemed to mean it. "I've only had one friend before, and I lost him when I found out what I was."

"Then he was a fool." Fenris grimaced. "I've almost lost friends to my prejudice; it doesn't feel good. Come, I must eat, but we can continue to talk." As he started to walk, he added, "Tell me about this 'friend'."

"His name is Rhys. He was a mage at the Spire when I thought I was a ghost. He could see me when no one else could." Cole fell into step beside Fenris.  

"What is a ghost if not a spirit?" Fenris asked.

"A ghost was a person once. Echoes fading in the fade. A spirit is a spirit. We just _are_."

"They look so similar. I didn't realise." Fenris scowled at two mages they were passing, who were staring at him. "Can they see you?" he asked.

"Not unless I make them," Cole explained. "I'm not _really_ real so their eyes don't want to stick."

"So, as far as they're concerned I'm talking to myself?" Fenris shook his head and scowled some more at the next bunch of people they passed. "Why did you let Rhys see you and not someone else?"

Cole shook his head. "I didn't _let_ him, he just did. I didn't know what I was back then. I couldn't control it like I can now that I know.

"A mage skill?" Fenris asked, ducking his head slightly to enter a large tent.

"No, just Rhys." Cole had spent a lot of time thinking about that, why Rhys could see him when no one else could. "All Rhys wanted to do was help. I think maybe that was why."

"When you say you lost him..." Fenris said leadingly, helping himself to burnt dead flesh and wet vegetation from a table covered it it.

Cole did his best to explain. "Rhys and Evangeline went to Adamant. And I went with them. I was worried Evangeline would hurt Rhys. We found out dangerous things. It scared Seeker Lambert, and he scared the mages. It started the rebellion. Seeker Lambert told me what I was. Rhys couldn't look at me. He didn't _want_ to look at me. He saw a monster. I ran until I found more templars." There was a hollow ache in his chest that had been there since it happened. Talking about it made it so he couldn't pretend it wasn't there like he usually did.

"I thought it was an idiot mage blowing up half of Kirkwall that started the rebellion," Fenris said dryly. "This Seeker Lambert was the one who told you that you were a demon? Why did you believe him?"

"Because it was true," Cole said, then dove into his own memory the way he usually did others'. "I'm hiding Rhys from him, but he chants words and sees. I won't let you hurt Rhys. My nose explodes a shower of blood. 'Just another parasite that's wormed its way into our world, feeding off all the things you can't have.'"

"What were you feeding off?" Fenris asked in between feeding himself.

Cole blinked. "What?"

"This Lambert, I assume, said you were feeding off the things you couldn't have. What things were they?"

And Cole realised he didn't have an answer to that. "I... I don't know." All he had wanted to do was protect Rhys. He _had_ killed mages, yes, but he had still been trying to help. He just did it wrong. And he didn't think he had been feeding off anything then...

"If you feed off anything, Cole, it's the easing of pain, and that doesn't make you a demon. Just the opposite." Fenris pointed his knife at Cole. "Humans lie. All people do. To themselves as much as to each other. With your abilities, you're better equipped than most to know that."

Cole was silent, considering. Seeker Lambert had been _very_ sure about him being a demon, but he had been very sure about a lot of bad things. Wrong things. Maybe... Seeker Lambert had thought Cole a demon not because of what Cole was, but because of what Seeker Lambert was. "He killed _so_ many. Seeker Lambert didn't care. Cold, corrupt. He only cared about protecting his power and pushing the mages down when they tried to stand up." He raised his head as the realisation hit. "He... he acted more like a demon than I did."

Fenris nodded. "Pride, ambition, blind hatred – I saw that in Kirkwall. Without Hawke..." He frowned, looking down at his food. "Without Hawke, that could have been me."

"You just wanted to be free and feel safe in that freedom. To not always be looking over your shoulder while you ran. You wanted to make friends without worrying you'd be forced to kill them again." He reached over and touched Fenris' hand. "You did. Hawke helped, but _you_ let him in. You didn't have to, but you wanted more than the hate and the fear so you tried. It worked. Now, you help your friends not hurt. You helped me."

"Good. We're a little way towards even then."

While Fenris finished his food, Cole became aware of someone's attention. A man was standing to one side of the entrance to the tent. He was watching Cole with Fenris and smiling slightly. He was mostly just watching Cole actually, with... fondness. He reached out to the man's thoughts. He found hurt there, damage deep under the surface, but it was softer than Cole was used to, like all the sharp edges had been worn away by the waves over time. And the man was still watching Cole.

"He sees me," he said, hearing the surprise in his own voice.

Fenris followed Cole's gaze. "That's, uh, Solas, I think. He's a mage. Maybe he's like Rhys."

The man – an elf like Fenris, only not like Fenris at all – walked towards them, stopping at their table. "I didn't mean to disturb," he said, "but seeing as I have, may I join you?"

Fenris didn't answer, looking at Cole instead.

"You can see me," Cole said to Solas. It was so unusual that it bore repeating. "Without me letting you."

"Yes, I can see spirits," Solas said. He had a very gentle voice. "I count many as my friends, but I'm not sure any are as unusual as you."

Spirit, not demon. Just like Fenris said. "I'm Cole," he introduced himself. "I came to help." He hesitated and then added, because it was the truth, even if he hadn't fully realised it when he'd decided to follow, "and because Fenris was happy to see me."

"Sit if you will," Fenris said, standing. "I need seconds."

Cole studied Solas. He could still sense the powerful pain within him but it was muted in a way he was not used to. "You're like the sea," he said. "Surface smothering softly the depths, damage, despair, agony in the action that must be. You lock it away as you locked them away."

Solas' eyes widened as he sat down in Fenris' vacated seat. "You see a lot. Perhaps too much, but I won't stop you. Tell me, Cole. How are you here, in this place, with that form?"

"I came through to help... but I couldn't," Cole said, not going into detail. He didn't want to talk about that, not right now. Talking about Seeker Lambert had been bad enough. "I forgot myself for a while, but I still tried to help. Now that I remember I can do better."

Solas nodded. "And so now you are helping the Inquisition?"

"Yes. I want to stop the hole in the sky from hurting more – spirits and people both." He cocked his head as he looked at the elf. "Is that why you're here too?"

"One of the reasons, yes. I was close by when the Breach formed." Solas was... hard to read. He meant what he said, but it was like a lid on a really large pot, and Cole couldn't see into the pot. He wondered what would happen if whatever was in the pot boiled over.

"You are different, Solas," he declared.

"Yes. Yes, I am. Not many see it though. We are, I think, alike, you and I."

That was true in that what they were was far different from what they appeared to be. Cole would worry more, but he got no sense of malice from Solas, and he didn't think that could be something Solas could hide entirely if it existed. But beyond that he wasn't sure of anything.

"Are we?" he asked, finding it ironic that he could see so little of someone who saw him so readily. "You hide too well, I can't see."

Solas smiled. "You shouldn't worry about me, Cole. I'm here to help, not harm. The work of the Inquisition is vital. I'm not hiding from you. You see all there is to see of this form."

 _This form_. Cole cocked his head to the side, considering. That was the key, he sensed, to figuring it out, finding his way past the shallow surface of the sea to the secrets that lay underneath. The truth. He looked at Solas, saw that he knew, that he'd given it to Cole deliberately, trusting in hopes of earning trust in return.

It was enough, he decided. After all, he was a secret that slipped from the shadows, a spirit self that no one saw even when they looked.

"Oh," he said in a moment of enlightenment. "I get it now. We are alike."

Solas' smile became a warm grin. "Yes, and I'm glad you're here, Cole, to help us."

Cole smiled back. Coming here had been the right decision. Here, he could help in a way he hadn't before. He glanced at Fenris returning to the table and then in the direction that Herald-Hawke had gone in, and remembered Fenris asking him to not make his friends forget.

"I better go tell them I'm here," he said, then vanished.

***

"Be that as it may, Hawke, having a spirit wandering about the camps will upset both the templars _and_ the mages!"

"Then at least they will be agreeing on something," Hawke replied cheerfully. He clapped Cullen on the shoulder. "You have to learn to look on the bright side."

Granted, he understood Cullen's unease. Having Cole slip by all their security and just suddenly appear on the war table of all places was not the way Hawke had been hoping to broach the subject of the spirit boy.

If he had known that Cole had followed them, he would've attempted to bring it up sooner, but he hadn't caught even a glimpse of him since Therinfal. At least he hadn't forgotten him. He wasn't sure if he should mention that little trick of Cole's to Cullen or not.

Still, given how the conversation had been going, Hawke had to admit he wasn't completely upset that it had been interrupted. There was only so many times he could go round the Mulberry bush of 'mages and templars can never work together, this will never work' before he wanted to scream and drop a fireball on all of them, himself included.

"The bright side," Cullen repeated dryly. "Remind me, which side is that again?"

"The side where we should now have more than enough power to close the Breach?" Hawke suggested, thinking that the fireball solution might still be a viable one. "The side where we saved those templars from a fate arguably worse than death? Or would you rather that hadn't happened? You're probably the last person I thought I'd have to argue with why bringing the Templars in was the right thing to do."

"I'm glad they're safe. Of course I am. The thought of that corruption, well, it beggars belief. But I'm still not sure bringing them here where you've already brought the mages..." Cullen tipped his head back, taking a deep breath. "Tell me that we can at least put them to work closing the Breach sooner rather than later?"

"As soon as we can organise it," Hawke said. He'd have done it that afternoon if it had been at all possible. "No one wants that thing closed more than me."

"The mages are ready now. I'm tempted to send them there to wait just to get them out of the way of the templars. They need a leader who instils more discipline than that Fiona if they're to act as part of an army." The weary way Cullen said it, Hawke just knew there had been mage-related incidents while he was gone.

"Yes, because there's no way that sending the mages out of the camp to wait for Maker knows how long in the centre of that truly horrific death and destruction could possibly go horribly wrong," Hawke said sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest. Mage-related incidents or not, Cullen needed to stop thinking of the solution to dealing with the mages was them being basically out of sight, out of mind. "Though I suppose it's a step up from wanting to lock them away in a former slave prison."

Cullen brought his hand to his head and pressed his fingertips hard into the creases between his brows. "I'm trying, Hawke. Give me that at least."

Hawke took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know you are," he admitted. "Look, you can't think of the mages as some kind of army, or military force, like the Templars. Some make great soldiers, a lot more of us have learnt to fight when we have to and fight well. But that's the kind of thing that was actively discouraged in the circles specifically because you templars didn't want mages to be a well-disciplined fighting force. That we've become as much of one as we have says something about the passion we have about what we're fighting for." He paused. "Don't think of it as Templars and mages, think of it as Orlesians and Fereldens when Orlais tried to conquer Ferelden."

Cullen screwed up his face. "Who's the Orlesians in that analogy?"

"Picture Meredith with an Orlesian accent," Hawke suggested grandly.

"So I am, or was, an Orlesian?" Cullen's expression was close to outraged, but he waved it away with a swipe of his gloved hand. "No matter. I get what you're saying. Mages are not military, and for those who wish to serve only in libraries and towers, that's fine. But if some are to serve the Inquisition in the field, then they need to become... something closer to military. And as an ex-templar, I'm not sure I'm the commanding officer they either want or deserve."

"They'd need someone who actually knows what it's like to be a mage and to fight in a group that includes mages and non-mages alike, maybe even have some experience with a martial order, like the Grey Wardens," Hawke said, choosing his words with care. He needed to make a point here. "Someone who has proven that they would put themselves on the line and sacrifice for the well-being and freedom of mages. Granted, that kind of passion can lead to some fairly big mistakes, but..."

Cullen started out looking interested, even hopeful, but then his expression fell into disgust. "You are not suggesting who I think you're suggesting. You better not be for his own safety. People here would lynch him!"

It took effort for Hawke to keep the smile he felt twitching at his lips from showing at Cullen taking the bait. Instead, he put on as shocked an expression as he could manage. "You thought I meant Anders? Maker, _he'd_ lynch _me_ if I ever suggested putting him in command of anything." Though if it could be arranged for him to informally work with any other healers they had in camp, that might do everyone a world of good, Hawke thought. He made a note to see if something like that couldn't be set up later. "No, I was talking about Fiona."

Cullen narrowed his eyes. "Have it your way, Hawke. Just don't blame me when it comes to bloodshed."

Hawke narrowed his eyes right back. "I'll blame whoever it is who throws the first punch."

"Fine." Cullen threw up his hands. "I'd much rather have everyone working on the same side. I can't help but imagine this Elder One rejoicing in every little squabble within our walls, cracks for his corruption to slither into."

The mention brought images of Corypheus and how he had influenced and controlled dwarves and wardens even when he had been captive and asleep, and Hawke had to suppress a shudder. They certainly didn't need to be making it any easier for him. He took a deep breath, and consciously let go of his irritation with Cullen. "You're right," he said. "Look, I'll talk to Fiona, see if between the two of us, we can't figure out some kind of training or something for the mages who want to fight."

"Thank you, Hawke," Cullen said, sounding very sincere. "I can ask no more than that. And now, if you'll excuse me, I must harry anyone I can find into sewing canvas into much needed sleeping tents since our quartermaster is apparently too busy."

"Better you than me," Hawke said, sentiment sincere even if he made it sound like a joke. He might have held his own in an actual one on one fight with Cullen, and he would dare say that he had as just a good a head for certain kinds of tactics – though he tended towards sneaky far more than the former templar – but Cullen was far better at the actual running of a large fighting force and keeping track of all the pesky little details that went along with that.

As Cullen strode off, Giddy bounded up and bounced around him. Apparently one prolonged 'Hello, I'm back' earlier hadn't been enough for him.

Hawke went down on one knee to give his dog the attention he was so obviously after. "Maybe I should put you in charge of dealing with any friction between the mages and templars," he said to him as he scratched Giddy's ears, and Giddy grinned happily at him. "You'd keep them all in line, wouldn't you, boy?"

Giddy barked a yes and lowered his front half in the mabari 'let's play' posture.

"Should I let him go where he pleases now that you're back?" said a voice – Connor, who had come up behind Hawke and was, inevitably, looking worried.

"You're doing fine with him," Hawke told the boy, smiling at him. "You're not the only one he runs away from when he gets an idea in his head. Mabari can be like a force of nature when they want to be, and Giddy more than most."

Connor looked down then up again. "Everybody is talking about what you did at Therinfal."

"I'm pretty sure no one expected me to bring templars back with me," Hawke said easily, though he watched Connor closely as he spoke. "How do you feel about them being here?"

"Safer," he answered immediately.

That wasn't the usual reaction most mages had to templars, but Hawke supposed for someone who had been through what Connor had it made sense. "How did the templars treat you when you were in the Circle?" he asked, thinking it couldn't hurt to get a better picture regardless.

"They never hurt me, if that's what you mean," Connor said, that crease he seemed to perpetually sport between his brows growing deeper. "Most of them didn't really talk to mages. They were just there, ready, in case the worst happened. Many of them were bought in to replace those who died when the tower fell to abominations, so they understood the risk we represent very well."

And that really was the heart of the problem that lay between mages and the Templars, and one of the things that Hawke was determined had to change. Abuses aside, if templars only saw mages as potential abominations and not people... "We're more than just a risk though," he said, gently, careful at how he chose his words. "That's something good templars have to remember. That's something we have to remember too."

"I suppose what was happening at Therinfal showed that everyone is a risk, if the evil force is great enough. Were they really.... growing crystals from their bodies?"

Hawke nodded solemnly. "They were. I wish we'd been able to save more though I'm happy we managed to save the ones we did." He deliberately didn't think about the fact that there had been a good portion of knights just missing when the dust had settled, according to Barras. They would deal with that when and if they had to. Right now, he was determined to focus on Connor. "So, do you think the templars we rescued should be locked away and guarded in case the worst happens? After all, it happened to other templars, so arguably they could represent a risk as well..."

"I don't know," he said miserably. "Maybe we all should watch each other."

"That isn't a terrible idea," Hawke said, "depending on how you think about it. Make it less about suspicion, waiting for someone to make a mistake, and more looking for where you can help someone who might be getting into trouble. Like when I fight, I have to trust the people fighting with me to watch my back. And, in turn, they trust me to watch theirs."

"That's all right if you catch them in time to help them," Connor said slowly, obviously thinking it through. "But what if you miss the signs and then it's too late? You'd have to kill your friend!"

"If you can't find a way to save them, then yes, it might come down to that. Sometimes there's nothing you can do," he admitted, thinking of Aveline and Wesley, Anders and Karl. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. And it most certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't care."

"I would feel such a hypocrite to have to kill someone for giving in to a demon," Connor said. "I don't think I want to watch over anyone. I'm sorry." He looked down.

"We really got to work on your tendency to jump to the worst possible scenario," Hawke said wryly. He was determined to find a way to inject some optimism into Connor.

"People who don't know who I am often tell me cheer up. 'What's the worst that could happen?' they always say." Connor looked up, met Hawke's eyes. "I _know_ what's the worst that could happen because it did happen."

Giddy sat down and whined.

"You're right," Hawke admitted. "The worst did happen to you. And you _survived_ it. I know what that feels like – not the demon part admittedly, but having the worst thing I could imagine happen and having to go on. It's not easy to do. In fact, it was probably harder to do than anything else I've done."

Connor swallowed and nodded. "That's why you're the Champion, and the Herald and... other things."

Hawke shook his head. "Those aren't the titles that are important to me. They just... happened. The titles I carry that are important are also a lot simpler. Son. Brother. Lover. Friend." He paused slightly before adding, "Teacher. Those are the ones that mean something to me. Those are the ones that I fought for – that I continue to fight for. And I'm not sure how good a job I'm doing at the teacher bit at the moment." He shook his head again and opened his hand, metaphorically dropping that topic. "Let's try something here – I want you to set a goal for yourself. Something positive. What is it you want, Connor?"

Connor's eyes widened. "Uh." After a pause he said, "to be a good apprentice? I wrote out those lists you wanted."

"Which makes you well on your way to the good apprentice title," Hawke told him with a smile. "Why don't you go get them, and we can go to my cabin and go over them?" After travelling and dealing with the Inquisition advisors, he was exhausted and had been hoping to maybe sneak in a nap, but would willingly forego that if it gave him a chance to start to change Connor's outlook on his magic and life in general.

"Are you sure?" Connor checked. "You've not been back long. Don't you want to, uh, eat?"

"I'll grab something when you're getting your notes," Hawke said. "I can eat while we talk."

"All right." Connor smiled at Hawke before hurrying off.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes play by Isabela's rules, and then Hawke plays the trump card...

They might have been crammed into Hawke's little two room shack, Varric thought, but something about having the four ex-Kirkwallians together playing Wicked Grace, a tankard of ale apiece, was powerfully nostalgic. True, they were sitting on the floor, as it was that or all on the bed, which... no. And true, the ale was the watery swill from the Haven tavern, but it felt good nonetheless. All that was missing was Isabela cheating incessantly, and maybe Daisy showing them all her cards while she gestured extravagantly during a story, and then it would be perfect.

Varric looked around at his friends and smiled broadly. This was an excellent way to spend the evening before the push to close the Breach.

Hawke peered at him suspiciously. "The last time you grinned like that while we were playing cards, I ended up walking home barefoot because you won my boots."

"And very nice plant pots they made too," Varric said, unrepentantly still grinning.

"At least you didn't have to walk home through Darktown," Anders pointed out, discarding the Knight of Roses.

Hawke shuddered theatrically. "I do not want to think what I could've stepped in if I had." He glanced over at Fenris. "I'll never figure out how you manage to wander around in the worst possible places without losing a toe or picking up a strange fungus or something."

"And I will never understand," Fenris drawled, "how you don't spend all the time falling on your arse wearing those contraptions on your feet."

"They're called boots," Anders said dryly.

"Hobbles," Fenris counter-suggested, drawing a card.

Hawke stretched out his legs and looked down at his feet. "Whatever you call them, I like these ones. So I'm folding before I lose them to the grinning dwarf over there."

"You'd have to bet them to lose them," Varric pointed out, drawing the Song of Mercy and immediately discarding it.

Anders drew a card and put it face up on the top of the deck – the Angel of Death, game over.

"Okay, you two, let's see what you have," Varric said, placing his full house of daggers and serpents down, face up.

Fenris snorted rudely and pushed his ante towards Varric without bothering to show his cards. Varric looked towards Anders, challenging him. Anders laughed, laid down three mothers, and gave his coin to Varric.

"If we'd just managed another round," he said ruefully.

"And suddenly I appear to be the smartest player at the table for folding when I did," Hawke said grandly. "Though if Andraste is truly looking out for me, she could've sent me better cards."

"The night is young, Hawke," Varric told him. "All in for another hand?"

"Why not? No one's bet anything exceedingly foolish yet." Hawke climbed to his feet and went to refill his tankard from the keg that he'd shamelessly abused his Herald status to have set up in the cabin. "Anyone else want a refill when I'm up?"

Three mugs were immediately lifted towards him.

As Hawke set about filling them, Anders turned to Fenris. "So," he said brightly. "Dorian. I can actually see it."

Fenris... growled.

Hawke frowned at the elf as he handed him his tankard. "I must be getting drunk," he announced. "I can't tell if the growling's because you can't see it, or because you can."

"For the last time, there is nothing between me and the pampered Tevinter scion," Fenris said to his ale.

"Yet," Anders said, smiling at the elf.

"You've only got yourself to blame for this, Broody," Varric said. "You did spent the night with the man."

"I did not!" Fenris glared at him. "I simply... fell asleep in the same tent."

"After attempting to get inebriated together on extra potions of dubious origin," Hawke pointed out, sitting down and reaching for the cards to deal. "Would you rather we keep talking about the level of intimacy you seemed to have developed with young Lord Pavus, or shall we move on to the topic of the levels of stupidity and lack of survival instinct you were showing by drinking them instead?"

"There was nothing wrong with the potions," Fenris claimed, apparently ignoring the rest of what Hawke had said.

"But why?" Varric asked. "Were you really that desperate for... whatever buzz it is you think you get from a stewed bunch of herbs and some mineral salts dissolved in wine that was turning to vinegar?"

"We couldn't sleep," Fenris said, squirming a little. "Are we going to play this hand or not?"

As Varric started to deal, Anders said, "To the best of my knowledge, nothing that goes into a regeneration potion is any sort of soporific, quite the opposite."

"We weren't trying to put ourselves to sleep. Will you shut up about potions?" Fenris picked up each of his cards as Varric dealt them, staring furiously at his hand as it developed. "And the Tevinter," he added as an afterthought.

"Nope," Hawke said cheerfully, beaming down at his own hand. "But I'll take pity and stop talking about how you were trying not to sleep and instead just focus on Dorian, and how quickly you went from wanting to rip his heart out to sleeping together. That was, what? Five days? And it was less than a week before that you met. You'd known me, what? Three years before you slept with me."

" _Fasta vass_. Leave it. All of you." Fenris scowled at his cards while everyone else looked at him. He threw them down. "And you," he snarled at Hawke, "you'd taunt me with that? You know what I was... what at the time... Arrggh!"

"Calm down, Broody," Varric said, not liking the way this was heading. "Everyone will drop the subject now, won't we?" He gave a meaningful look to Anders and Hawke.

Hawke grimaced. "That... might be a bit difficult considering what I did when I was arranging the keg," he said, expression that of a naughty child who got his hand caught in the cookie jar.

"Hawke, the Matchmaker," Anders said, tipping his head as if he were trying the phrase out for veracity. "You do need a third one to go with 'Champion' and 'Herald', but I'm not sure this one has the necessary ring to it."

"Because titles have to come in threes?" Varric asked, raising an eyebrow that he intended to mean 'what part of drop the subject did you not understand?'.

"Is that what you're doing?" Fenris demanded of Hawke. "Trying to... pair me off?"

"I wouldn't put it like _that_ ," Hawke said, suddenly finding the ceiling of the cabin incredibly fascinating.

There was knock on the cabin door just then, followed immediately by Dorian pushing it open. "I thought I might take you up on your invitation, after all–" he was saying cheerfully as he entered only to stop when he'd had a second to gauge the emotional level of the room. "Or... I could just leave and pretend I was never here?" he offered instead.

"Sit down," Fenris instructed angrily, shuffling closer to Varric to make room.

Varric rolled his eyes. "What he means is 'delighted to see you, Sparkler. Do sit down while I fetch you a mug of ale'."

Dorian still looked more than a little wary, but did as requested. "When Hawke said your games were cut-throat, I wasn't quite imagining this level of..." He cleared his throat and looked from one to the other. "There aren't actually cut throats involved are there? Because if so, I feel like I should've worn something that would be easier to clean of blood stains."

"Just cut them out," Anders suggested. "That way you could show off more skin."

"Ignore him," Fenris advised dourly. "I do."

"We usually draw the betting line at actual body parts," Hawke said with a smidgeon of his usual jovial manner.

Dorian raised his eyebrows. "That sentence would be far less worrying if it hadn't contained the word 'usually'," he observed.

"Relax," Varric told him, as he collected the cards ready to redeal. "You're more likely to lose your outfit than get blood on it."

"Oh yes," Anders said. "Good idea. Let's play Isabela's rules this hand."

Hawke looked like he was going to argue, but then shrugged. "It's not like I have to do the walk of shame anywhere when the night's over," he said. "Just as long as we understand that all articles of clothing revert back to their original owner in the morning. I am not closing the Breach naked."

"No." That was Fenris, a flat denial.

"You only say that because you have less clothing to lose," Anders pointed out. "And whose fault is that Mr I don't hobble my feet with shoes?"

"We are not playing strip... anything."

"Well, I'm game," Dorian put in. "Just as long as we keep in mind what this Southern cold can do to certain attributes."

Anders snorted. "That's his excuse, and he's sticking to it." He picked up his new hand and looked at it. "Well, you'll be seeing a lot more of me in the near future."

"Nothing we haven't seen before," Varric said, shaking his head and adding, "whether we wanted to or not," under his breath.

Hawke, however, caught it. "Some of us definitely want," he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Anders.

"Don't you get enough of... that–" Fenris waved a disparaging hand in Anders' general direction "–every night?"

The waggling eyebrow expression morphed into an overly sweet smile. "There's no such thing as enough."

As Anders' expression melted, and they did that gazing into each other's eyes thing, Varric rolled _his_ eyes, and Fenris made a noise of disgust.

Varric nudged Hawke with his elbow. "I dealt. It's your go."

Hawke picked up his cards, looked at his hand for a second and then a slow smug smile spread across his face. "You all might just as well throw in the towel now. Or perhaps I should say your pants."

Dorian looked at him speculatively. "You're bluffing."

Hawke puffed himself up. "Andraste's Chosen here. I don't bluff."

Fenris made a rude noise to that assertion, and Varric laughed, saying, "It's true. He doesn't bluff... convincingly."

"I said I don't bluff, not that I couldn't. I've lived as an apostate all my life," Hawke pointed out. "If there's one thing I can do, it's lie."

"And yet," Varric said with a grin, "whenever it mattered, you always got me to spin the necessary yarn."

Anders looked offended on behalf of his lover. "There's a difference between bluffing and outright lying. Hawke's good at the former. You're good at... well, both."

Varric laughed. "Just have your turn already, master-bluffer."

Hawke drew and discarded the Serpent of Avarice after barely glancing at it. "That's Herald Master-bluffer."

"I'm curious," Dorian said, looking around. "Why is this called Isabela's rules?"

"Pretty much anything that involves getting drunk and naked together could be considered her rules," Anders said thoughtfully. "You don't even really need the drunk bit." He drew a card, put it in his hand and threw the Song of Mercy.

"The more the merrier," Fenris said dryly as he took his turn. "In terms of participants."

"I think one of her greatest disappointments was that none of these games ever turned into an orgy," Hawke put in.

"Not in Kirkwall anyway," Anders said, smirking.

"Shows what you know," Fenris said, smirking even more.

Hawke raised an eyebrow and looked at the elf. "You, her, and....?"

"None of your business," Fenris said, still looking sly. Varric was almost but not quite sure he was bluffing. Where Isabela was concerned, there was always that element of nagging doubt.

Dorian had had his turn by this point, so Varric took the top card, sighed loudly at the Angel of Death and put it down on the top of the pack. "Short hand, this one. Anyone got anything?"

"Not me," Anders said, throwing his hand down and immediately starting to unlace one of his boots. "Do you remember the time she added six extra death angels to the pack we were playing with?"

"How could I forget?" Hawke said. "Hottest night of the summer so everyone was already down a few layers before we began." He laid his hand down, revealing four knights and grinned at Dorian. "Told you I wasn't bluffing."

Dorian sighed and tossed his cards into the pile. "Yes, yes, Andraste obviously wants you to see everyone naked. Rather accommodating of her." He started undoing the buckles on one of his gloves.

Varric slipped off a boot. Meanwhile, Fenris laid down his hand, which only contained a pair of note, and proceeded not to remove anything. Varric rolled his eyes, waiting for the outcry to start.

"Fenris," Hawke said leadingly. Dorian paused in removing his glove and looked between the two of them.

"I already said no," Fenris said calmly. "My opinion didn't change just because you all decided to ignore it."

Anders pouted at him. "Don't spoil our fun."

Fenris stared back. "I'm not responsible for your 'fun', mage."

"You don't normally refuse to join in," Varric pointed out cautiously, trying to work out what was going on.

"The last time we played this was five years ago," Fenris said, sneering at him. "Circumstances were... different then."

Dorian had stopped fiddling with his glove entirely now, instead looking at Fenris with concern. "If my presence is making things uncomfortable, I can go," he offered, starting to stand.

Fenris grabbed his hand, ordering, "Sit down," again and only letting go when Dorian obeyed. The elf sighed heavily. "If I'm doing this, we start on an equal footing. I'm _not_ going to be the only one naked again."

Varric didn't miss the brief expression of shocked happiness that had crossed Dorian's face when Fenris stopped him from leaving, though it had only shown for a second. "Never let it be said I refused to be on equal footing in such esteemed company," Dorian was saying now, bowing to Fenris as he settled back in his spot. "What do you envision? You adding layers or the rest of us losing some?"

"The latter," Fenris replied with a half-smile. "Otherwise they'll use the opportunity to force me to wear shoes."

"So how many items are you wearing, Broody?" Varric asked.

"Five."

"That's only one less than me!" Varric sighed and took his other boot off.

"We wouldn't know," Anders said to Varric, standing to remove his feathery coat. "We've never even seen you without your breeches, even with Isabela's best cheating!"

"I can't help it if I'm a good player."

"A good player who becomes mysteriously unbeatable whenever breeches are at risk," Anders pointed out.

"Are you saying you think _I'm_ cheating," Varric asked, all mock outrage and raised brows of innocence.

"I'm saying I _know_ you are," Anders replied. "I just don't seem to be able to catch you at it."

"I have," Hawke offered as he was kicking off his boots, "but I wasn't actually playing at the time so I treated it as a learning experience."

Dorian had undone the buckles and pulled off both gloves and was now unfastening the short silk cloak he wore draped over his usual bare shoulder. "So... cheating isn't a... violent infraction?"

"If we catch you at it, penalties may be incurred," Fenris said, looking down, but not so much that Varric couldn't see the sly smile.

"What sort of penalties?" Dorian carefully folded the cloak and laid it aside and started work on his belt. "To satisfy my purely intellectual curiosity. I would, of course, never even dream of cheating."

"Well, to start with, extra clothing loss," Anders said sitting back down, his hair now loose about his shoulders. "If you persist, we'll think up some juicier forfeits though, I'm sure."

Varric removed his own hair tie, having forgotten about it in the count. "Isabela kept a book of them. Ironic, really."

"The forfeits weren't actually that great a deterrent for her anyway," Hawke pointed out. "Half the time I think she let us catch her cheating just so she had to pay them."

Dorian turned to Varric. "Did any of this make your book?" he asked curiously.

"Not so much," he said with a laugh. "Isabela did write some, uh, 'literature' of her own though."

"She had a thing about my eyes," Fenris said, obviously remembering one particular tale of Isabela's. "I was flattered until she said she wanted to wear them as earrings."

"They are very... jewel-like," Dorian observed after staring at Fenris' eyes contemplatively for a moment. Hawke gave a muffled snicker.

Fenris' head whipped around from where he'd been doing his own share of staring into eyes to scowl at Hawke. "You still have too much on," he pointed out.

Hawke looked back with a good approximation of confused innocence. "Socks, pants, tunic, belt. That's five."

Fenris listed with his fingers. "One, your smallclothes and don't pretend you don't wear them. Two, that knife strap under your pants. Three, that amulet of your father's."

Anders looked impressed. "Good recall!"

Hawke sighed and removed his socks and belt.

Dorian was looking back and forth now between Hawke and Fenris. "Knowledge borne of past games with Isabela's rules or...?"

"That and the night he shared with Hawke, many years ago," Anders said helpfully, "By all accounts, it was the exact opposite of your night with him in that–"

"Say another word and lose your tongue, mage," Fenris interrupted. Despite the snarl, he didn't seem truly angry as, Varric couldn't help but notice, his lyrium tattoos didn't so much as even sparkle.

"Falling asleep in the same tent does not actually constitute a night with someone, at least by any definition I've ever heard," Dorian said primly. If he had a reaction to the other information he'd just learnt, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

"That is exactly what I was attempting to say!" Anders said, play-acting being hurt rather badly.

Varric had always rather enjoyed the mischievous side of Anders, which had been in short supply towards the end of Hawke's time in Kirkwall. It was good to see it make a reappearance even if he was playing with spiky elven fire. Shaking his head in fond exasperation, he collected together the cards and started to deal _again_. One way or another, they'd get this game played.

"I apologise," Fenris said to Dorian in a lowered but still audible tone. "For my... friends."

"Not at all," Dorian told him, waving the apology off with an elegant beringed hand. "This is a far better way of spending an evening than drinking alone in the tavern pretending I don't see all the glares directed my way."

Hawke seemed to centre in on that comment. "Are people giving you a rough time?"

"No more than I expected," Dorian replied. "I am a mage from Tevinter, after all. For a lot of people here that is synonymous with evil incarnate. You learn to expect a certain amount of glaring."

"They just don't know you," Fenris said, and that more than anything else told Varric there was something very unexpected happening between Fenris and Dorian. He would never have believed it if he wasn't witnessing it first hand.

"Of course, anyone who gets to know me understands how marvellous I really am," Dorian said, so extravagantly it was obvious the arrogance was all a mask. The tiny far more genuine smile that followed made it even more obvious. "But I thank you for the compliment."

After more ale was distributed they got back on with the game. The next hand was long and carefully played, but when the Angel of Death appeared, it was Hawke again who won. Fortunes changed over the next few hands, however until all but Fenris and Varric were dressed only in their small clothes, and the keg was almost empty. Fenris, of course, didn't wear smalls, so he was in the same position as the others having only his leggings left to loose. No one else knew what Varric wore under his pants, and he intended to keep it that way.

"Well," Anders said, looking at his hand, "you should all be preparing yourselves for a special treat."

"Seen it before, mage. Really not a treat," Fenris said with a sneer.

Anders' eyebrows raised. "Charming."

Dorian paused as he reached to draw a card, looking between Anders and Fenris. "Have the two of you...?"

The pair spoke simultaneously. The "Maker, no!" was Anders, and " _Vishante kaffas_ , never!" was Fenris.

"Blondie loses at cards a _lot_ ," Varric drawled. "He seems to take a weird kind of pleasure in it."

"You make me sound like an exhibitionist," Anders said plaintively.

"If the lack of clothing fits..." Hawke drawled.

Anders gave Hawke a two-finger poke in the side. "You like me naked," he pointed out as if it needed to be.

"I liked it less when I had to explain why you were naked in the kitchen to my mother," Hawke replied, reaching out and tugging affectionately on Anders' hair. "She thought we were doing unnatural things to the pies she'd bought."

"Were you?" Dorian asked curiously.

"The fact she even thought we might be said rather more about her than us, I thought," Anders said, shuffling closer to Hawke. "Anyway, I didn't undress myself that day."

"Yes, but we were safely in my bedroom behind a closed door," Hawke said. "You're the one who decided they needed to a midnight snack but didn't need clothes."

"It was more like a 2 a.m. snack – what was she doing up?" Anders rested a hand on Hawke's leg. "I thought at worst all I'd meet was Sandal."

"Are we still playing this game?" Varric asked loudly as Anders' hand started wandering up his nearly naked lover's leg.

"Oh, are we moving on to the orgy part of the evening?" Dorian asked brightly... which of course was the exact moment when Cassandra knocked and opened the door.

"Champion, I–" she started and then stopped dead, her eyes wide.

To start with everyone froze apart from Varric, who found himself sitting up a lot straighter and sucking in his gut. Then Fenris sighed and reached for his tunic.

Anders wrapped his arms around himself. "Andraste's pointed nipples, close the bloody door, woman!"

Hawke sighed and ran a hand through his hair before answering as if he was sitting there in full armour. "Is there something I can do for you, Seeker?"

"I, uh." She stared desperately at the ceiling. "Uh, perhaps you could, uh, come to the chantry when you have a moment... that is to say, as soon as possible." She turned on her heels and fled.

"And she still didn't close the door!" Anders exclaimed.

Hawke gave a long sigh. "I am a very, very bad example of a religious figure."

Dorian seemed to find this incredibly funny because he dissolved into uncontrollable giggles, falling over against Fenris.

While Fenris did his best to prop the mage up, Anders tried to wrap himself in Hawke to keep warm. Varric sighed, drew himself to his feet, and pulled his tunic on.

"Hawke, if ever a religion needed to lighten up some," he said, heading to the door to close it, "it's this one."

"What if they added verses about this to the Chant?" Dorian asked, between giggles. "And lo, the Herald of the most holy Andraste hath lost his breeches because he encountered the Angel of Death one time too many."

Hawke's mouth was starting to twitch with a barely restrained grin as well now. "Very, very bad example," he repeated. The grin broke free as he added, "Can you imagine Sebastian's reaction if they did?"

"Ha!" Varric barked with laughter as he came back. "He'd lead a crusade against us."

"Who's to say he won't anyway, when he hears who's sharing the Herald's bed," Anders pointed out. "I can just hear him: 'Maker, noooooo!'."

Fenris, meanwhile, seemed to have given up on propping up Dorian and seemed to be content to let the man lean on him, even though he'd only managed to get one arm into his tunic so far. "Did she catch the orgy comment?" he asked.

Hawke seemed to give the question serious consideration, taking noticeably longer than he would when he was sober. Finally he shrugged and said, "Damned if I can tell for sure, but I would think there would've been more–" and here he managed a passable imitation of the disgusted noise Cassandra made a lot.

This set Dorian off again, closely followed by the rest of them. Even Fenris was grinning.

All in all, Varric thought, this had turned out to be a rather fine night.

***

The light that fell across Dorian when he woke up was so bright it hurt even with his eyes shut. He gave a moan of disapproval and flopped over, burying his face against something warm and unyielding to try and block it out.

He let out a groan of relief as the illumination behind his closed eyelids dimmed. _Much_ better.

The warm and unyielding 'something' made a grumbling noise and was suddenly taken away. "What? _Kaffas_ , again?" a voice said from close by.

Very close by. Dorian froze and then slowly pried one eye open, only to see lots of white hair and a bit of a pointed ear against the sunlit tent wall. He closed his eye again and said calmly, "Fenris."

"Why does this keep happening?" Fenris asked – no, _demanded_ far too loudly.

" _Kaffas_ , quietly if you please," Dorian grumbled, bringing a hand up to press against his forehead. "My head feels like it's one good shout away from splitting apart, and I'm sure neither of us wants to deal with that."

"I'm not surprised. You drank more than anyone else last night, unless... Did we go on to the tavern?" Fenris sat up; Dorian could feel more than see him moving.

Dorian frowned and searched his memories of the night before. They became somewhat vague and spotty as the night had worn on, but he did remember leaving Hawke's cabin in the company of Fenris after Anders had started groping Hawke again. He remembered Fenris leaning on him as the world tilted around them, as much as he had leant on the elf. He remembered swearing a blue streak at the cold because he was afraid he was actually turning blue and Fenris suggesting the solution was to go somewhere where there was a fire and more alcohol... Ah.

"Yes," he replied, answer to the question successfully retrieved. His memories from that point on were even more spotty, but he seemed to recall Fenris... glaring at the other patrons, declaring loudly that it was in retaliation for them glaring at Dorian. Well, not in those exact words, but the meaning was there. And even though it hurt his head, Dorian couldn't help but chuckle at the memory.

"It's amusing?" Fenris asked, sounding bemused.

"You were defending my honour," Dorian told him. "From hostile glaring. By glaring hostilely. Though I'm sure that just upgraded me from 'that evil mage from Tevinter' to 'that evil mage from Tevinter who drinks with that strange elf who is far scarier than an elf should be'."

"You clearly haven't known many free elves," Fenris replied, moving about beside Dorian. "And definitely not any Dalish."

"True, but that appalling lack in my social interactions doesn't change my conclusion." He moved the arm he'd thrown over his face enough to look at Fenris while still blocking most of the appallingly bright morning light. "Or are you going to pretend you don't relish being thought of as scary and intimidating?"

Fenris looked down at him, a smirk on his face. "Do _you_ find me scary and intimidating?"

"Of course I do!" Dorian said a bit louder than he'd intended, causing him to wince at the spike of pain it sent through his skull. "I may be a lot of things, but no one has ever accused me of being stupid. Quite the opposite usually." He studied Fenris' face for a moment before adding, "Admittedly, the immediate effect is lessened when you're not actively glowering and glowing."

Fenris was now looking rather smug as he started restoring pieces of spiky armour to his body while sitting up on the bedroll. "I _am_ dangerous," he said, adding dryly, "Almost as much as a mage."

"I would conjure a fireball while cackling evilly to live up to your expectations if I wasn't certain the effort would cause me to start bleeding from the eyes," Dorian said, waving his non-light blocking hand in a poor imitation of the gesture he used to call fire.

Fenris stopped moving, studying Dorian. "Can't you do any healing magic at all?"

"It's never been a strong suit of mine, no." He remembered trying to learn more when Felix had first fallen ill, but his attempts had only led him sideways to finding he had an aptitude for necromancy. "My magic has always been much more of the offensive category. The one healing spell I've ever had any consistent luck with involves harnessing the spirit energy caused by a nearby death. Rather overkill for dealing with a self-induced headache, don't you think?"

"Find Anders before you leave," Fenris advised. "I'm told he's the best hangover cure going." He paused then said, "I'm assuming you're helping with the Breach closure today."

"I'm not about to miss my chance to be able to brag I helped save the world." Bracing himself, Dorian sat up, pleased when it only made his head start to pound harder and didn't induce any additional nausea. "No need to bother Anders. It's not the first time I've had to muscle through the consequences of a night of excess. I will be fine on my own."

"Stupid," Fenris commented. "And selfish."

"Firstly, you're only calling me stupid because I just declared that no one does that. Secondly," Dorian raised an eyebrow, "I rather thought it was the opposite of selfish."

Fenris sneered. "Lives may depend on how quick your reflexes are. Refusing help when it's easily available is stupid and selfish. If I can allow that... mage to lay his hands on me, so can you."

Dorian supposed there was some truth in that. "Fine," he sighed. "If I see Anders before things get going, I'll ask." He studied Fenris for a moment in silence. "I'm not sure I completely understand your relationship with Anders," he ventured, his curiosity getting the better of his tact. "Half the time you act like you can barely stand to breathe the same air he does, but you still seem to be... well, friends."

"We're not friends," Fenris said firmly, but then sighed. "We share friends, important ones. We've fought demons, blood mages, corrupt templars, darkspawn, and countless criminal gang members together, so we... know each other. We trust each other to do our jobs in a fight. That's it."

"So..." Dorian began slowly, "you trust him to have your back in a fight, you trust him enough to get drunk and play silly stripping games with – multiple times judging by what everyone said last night – but you're not friends."

"Yes."

"So you do everything people normally do with their friends, and even go to extremes for each other that a lot of people wouldn't for their friends, but you're not friends."

"Yes."

"Have you considered that your definition of friend may not be the same thing as other people's?"

"For him to be a friend, I'd have to like him. I don't. I don't like him, approve of him, agree with him, or find him attractive," Fenris explained, moving to sit crossed legged. "Quite the opposite."

"No one said anything about finding him attractive," Dorian pointed out. "Although now that you mentioned it, he isn't very hard to look at."

Fenris turned his back on Dorian, looking, it seemed, for his last pieces of missing armour. "He's an abomination; it revolts me," he said, sounding done with the subject.

"Fine," Dorian said, opening his hand as if he could physically drop the topic. He spotted the missing piece of armour that Fenris must be looking for and grabbed it, holding it out to the elf. "What about us then? Are we friends?"

Taking the bracer, Fenris turned back to face Dorian and seemed to study him for a while. "I'd like to think so," he said slowly. "We've not known each other long." Then he snorted with humour, the slanted smile back on his face. "That said, I've ended up sleeping beside you twice now so you must be doing something right."

"Considering I keep waking up with all my internal organs still internal," Dorian teased. He had grown used to Fenris' scowl, but his smile was... well. He probably shouldn't let his thoughts wander in that direction.

"Considering where you come from..." Fenris stopped, frowning slightly. "It's strange. Something about you reminds me that not everything about Tevinter was awful. That scent you wear..."

Dorian felt both his eyebrows go up in surprise. "You like the way I smell?"

"Today we both smell too much of what we drank last night," Fenris said with a wry smile. "But generally, yes. It reminds me of the gardens of the Minrathous estate. I could escape there sometimes. Rarely. I used to lie on the grass, listening to birdsong and the hum of bees, letting the sun warm me. It was... good."

That seemed like such a simple thing to think so fondly of, but Dorian remembered all too well Fenris' descriptions of slavery and realised that even stealing a simple moment to himself would've been something to cherish. "I'm glad you had at least a few moments that weren't horrible," he said softly.

Fenris' gaze had unfocused during his reminiscing but now he looked at Dorian again, his expression somewhat unclear. "It's taken me twelve years to get to this point, to have some... perspective on it all."

Dorian was unsure what was happening here between them, but he knew that it was important. "I... don't think there's a time limit on acquiring perspective," he finally said with what he hoped was a warm look, but feared would just be him looking out of his depth and trying too hard.

Fenris stared at him, tipping his head slightly, and for a moment Dorian had to wonder if something beyond conversation was going to happen; there seemed to be that intensity in his gaze, that tension in the air, and they really were quite close together in this small tent...

But then Fenris grinned. "You know, the temptation to lean over and repair your moustache for you is really quite powerful."

Dorian resisted the urge to clap his hand over his upper lip in horror, but just barely. Instead, he sniffed haughtily. "I'm sure you still find me attractive," he quipped. "After all, we're friends, aren't we?"

Fenris didn't deny either assertion, just saying, "Especially as I'm fairly sure you broke it trying to nuzzle into my shoulder."

This time Dorian couldn't resist and only relaxed when he had confirmed through touch that his moustache was, though completely dishevelled, still there in its entirety. He glared at the smirking elf. "Has anyone ever told you you have a sadistic sense of humour?"

Fenris let out a bark of laughter. "It has been mentioned. I suppose there's no point in trying to leave this tent separately. The dwarf at least must know we're both in here. He notices everything."

Dorian grabbed the little travel mirror he kept with his things and set about righting his appearance. "Indeed. Especially since I have no memory of how we got back here last night, so I don't know how many witnesses may exist." He stopped his primping to meet Fenris' gaze. "Does that... bother you?"

"Not really." Fenris had been watching Dorian work with what looked like interest or perhaps amusement. "It did the first night we, uh, slept in the same tent. Now I think I'll enjoy confounding them."

"Is this enjoyment going to take the form of smirks or glowering and snarls?" Dorian asked. "Just for my own edification so I know how I should be reacting."

"Which would you prefer?"

"You're allowing me a say?" Dorian could hear the surprised delight in his own voice. The question moved him from amused observer to active co-conspirator, and it was amazing how much that seemed to improve his already good mood.

"More fun if we're in it together," Fenris said with a sly smile.

"I suppose it is," Dorian agreed, trying to remember the last time someone invited him to be in on a joke instead of the butt of one. Felix maybe, back before he'd caught the blight, and things had started going downhill. "Knowing smirks," he decided after a brief consideration. "It will be more confusing if we don't act like we're embarrassed."

"No denials or affirmations, just smirks. I can do that," Fenris said, demonstrating perhaps unwittingly that he could indeed. He then thrust his splayed fingers into his hair and pulled them through it a couple of times, and that apparently was all the primping he required of a morning.

Dorian couldn't even say that he needed any more because the elf was already damnably handsome, almost too much so now that he wasn't threatening Dorian's life with every other breath. Come to that, it wasn't like Dorian hadn't noticed how attractive Fenris was even when he _had_ been threatening Dorian's life with every other breath.

 _Focus_ , he told himself sternly, as he continued with his far more elaborate morning routine. The friendship that seemed to be developing between him and Fenris was both surprising and far more rewarding than a quick fuck would be, no matter how attractive he found the elf. He wouldn't let himself ruin it.

Fenris had returned to studying him. He seemed to find the whole process fascinating. "Why do you do this?" he asked after some moments had passed. "You know how handsome you are, so it can't be insecurity about your looks. Is it... a mask? A false face to hide behind from the world?"

That was close enough to the truth to be uncomfortable. Fenris was far more than a pretty face skilled at killing. "I could say it's like displaying a masterpiece painting in an exquisite frame – you want to make sure you're showing off its beauty to the best of your abilities," Dorian replied, and he could have left it there, but doing so hadn't even been a serious thought. "But it's more than that. You're right, in a way, but I like to think of it as less a mask and more like... armour. Something to protect my squishy bits from attack." He tried to smirk at the last but rather feared it came out more as a lopsided smile that was far more fragile than he liked to show.

Fenris nodded. "Humans tend to make assumptions about elves without even knowing they're doing it. How I look and act? It helps stop those assumptions."

Dorian stopped what he was doing to just stare at the elf for a moment. "That's it exactly."

Smiling, Fenris looked down at his hands. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

"For letting me see underneath."

Dorian's heart gave a lurch that he steadfastly ignored. Still, his voice was a lot softer than his usual when he said, "You do have a talent for reaching right through a person's armour to the... squishy bits."

"I suppose I do," Fenris said with a soft snort. He grabbed his sword scabbard, which he couldn't wear while sitting down. "Ready?"

Dorian took one last look at himself then put the mirror away and clipped his short cloak on over his bare shoulder. "Time to confound and amaze our no doubt eager audience," he said, closing his hand around his staff.

Fenris open the tent flap, and they went out to face the morning.

***

"Off we go to save the world again," Anders said breezily, hoping it wasn't too obvious just how closely he was sticking to Hawke. The crowd of people trekking down to the Temple of Sacred Ashes practically throbbed with the desire to see him dead, preferably with a generous portion of torment first. Even the other mages didn't seem to like him very much.

"Just another day at work," Hawke joked, though he caught Anders' hand in his own as they walked and squeezed it. Anders could feel the nervous energy and worry coming off his lover, and it was a testament to his own nerves that he couldn't tell if it was because of the crowds, or because of what Hawke was about to attempt.

Probably both. It would make sense if it was both.

"Justice thinks this will work," he said, even though he had no idea if that was still the case. Justice had been very quiet since they'd got back from Therinfal, probably because Anders himself hadn't been at all quiet on the subject of being stabbed in the co-owned back.

"It will," Hawke declared with his usual brash confidence, but then in a softer, for Anders' ears only voice he added, "It's not like we have a plan B if it doesn't."

"We won't need it," Anders said and tried hard to sound like he meant it. "How can this not work? The power of symbolism alone means it has to. Think about it, opposite sides in a terrible war coming together under the leadership of a divine messenger to heal the world. Well, the sky anyway."

He felt a sense of accomplishment when that pulled a genuine chuckle out of Hawke. "You sound like Varric coming up with a tag line for his next book."

"The one he'll write about today when we succeed, you mean?"

"Tale of the Champion 2 – Hawke just can't stay out of trouble," Hawke joked.

"I wonder how many volumes there will be in the end," Anders mused. "Volume 36: Hawke and the Walking Stick of Evil."

Hawke made a point at glancing at the Key slung over his shoulder. "I think we've already done that one."

Anders considered that. "Well, it _was_ charged up by blood magic."

"And there was quite a lot of evil involved when all was said and done," Hawke added. "Though since then it's been more the Walking Stick of Meant Well But Made Incredibly Foolish Decisions."

"Unless we're suddenly talking about me, I don't know what you mean. You haven't made any foolish decisions, love. Well, other than those that involve me anyway."

"Agreeing to play by Isabela's rules last night comes to mind for one," Hawke said. "Cassandra hasn't been able to look me in the eye all day."

Anders laughed. "It's going to do wonders for your rep in some quarters though. The Herald is such virile man, he has 5-man orgies that include a dwarf! And you know what they say about dwarves, don't you?"

"The answer's going to be horrifying isn't it?"

"Oh, nothing that terrible," Anders said, grinning, "just rumours of stone-like firmness and the stamina of a bronto."

Hawke made a face. "That's just this side of horrifying when the dwarf in question is Varric. All that chest hair..." He mock shuddered.

"Poor Varric, when all around him seem to be getting some, he's stuck with a crossbow to cuddle up to in the night. Related to that, have you seen the matching smirks being worn by a certain couple this morning?"

"Oh yes," Hawke said, grinning as he glanced over to where Fenris was walking beside Dorian with the other mages. "That certainly escalated far more quickly than anyone would've predicted."

"A Tevinter mage, no less," Anders marvelled. "Almost a magister! It's almost impossible to believe. Has he been possessed by an amiability spirit?"

"Dorian's about as far away from any magister I've ever met as you can get," Hawke pointed out. "Although I am pleasantly surprised that Fenris actually made the effort to discover that. I hadn't really been hoping for anything beyond him not killing Dorian."

"There's still time," Anders joked. At least he thought he was joking. "He's still wearing your crest though," he pointed out. "And that bit of rag."

"I used to be unsure how I should feel about that, pleased that he still cared enough to wear them, sad that he wasn't able to offer more..." Hawke trailed off with eyes full of memories which he shook off with a shrug. "Confused most of the time. But I got used to it. Now I'm honestly not sure how I'd feel about it if he stopped wearing them."

Anders couldn't help himself. "I know how I'd feel," he said, an edge to his voice.

That startled Hawke's attention back to him with gratifying speed. "He wears my crest. You have my heart," he said.

That felt good. No matter how often he had confirmation of how Hawke felt about him, it always felt stupidly good. Anders bathed in the feeling for a moment or two, before saying, "Maybe now he has a gorgeous mage of his own, he can stop hating me quite so vigorously."

Hawke chuckled. "At this point I'm convinced the day the two of you can actually admit to caring about each other is the day the world will actually end."

"I'd better start putting a lot more effort into not caring then. The fate of the world itself is at stake!" Anders laughed. He hoped this conversation was helping distract Hawke as much as it was soothing his own nerves. All around them trod overly solemn people, and it was hard to ignore them. "We must be nearly there," he said. "I can practically feel the Breach, we're that close."

"We are," Hawke said. He held up his left hand; Anders could see it glowing green through the glove Hawke was wearing. "No practically about it, I can feel it. It's pulsing like a heartbeat."

"Does it hurt?" Anders felt uneasy every time he saw Hawke's hand glow and pulse like that, and he really wasn't sure how much of that was Justice reacting to the fade-related power and how much was him worrying about what it might be doing to his lover.

"It's not... pain exactly," Hawke said, obviously struggling to find the words to describe it. "It's like... you know that one second when you cast a chain lightning spell, just before you release it, and the energy is all focused on you? It's like that, only focused just on my hand. Like all my nerves are humming with the potential of pain, but not _actually_ pain." He frowned. "Does that make sense?"

Anders nodded. "Like how it feels when we don't use a staff to focus our power, only more so?"

"More like someone else has turned me into _their_ staff," Hawke said wryly, "but yes, that's probably the closest I'd felt to it before."

"I s–" Oh. They were entering the area where the Conclave must have been. It was just rubble and broken walls. It was obvious someone had been making an attempt to tidy up, but maybe because of the danger involved in being so close to the Breach, it wasn't either well done or finished. To the side, from under some hastily thrown canvas sheets, blackened limbs protruded.

Anders felt himself stare.

Beside him, he actually felt Hawke relax a little. "Oh," he said, sounding relieved. "I didn't think they'd... I thought it was going to be like it had been before." And wasn't that a horrible statement, Anders thought numbly. How bad had it been the last time Hawke had been here if _this_ was better enough to make his lover feel relieved?

"Maker," he whispered. No wonder people hated him.

He felt Hawke squeeze the hand he was still holding. "This wasn't you," he told Anders in a voice soft enough to ensure it didn't carry any further.

But it had been. Because of him people had died, just like this.

The smell... it wasn't rotting flesh – there was no flesh left to rot. It was metallic, sulphurous and both sickly sweet and bitter. And this was weeks later; what had it been like at the time? Maker knew, he'd smelled burnt flesh so many times in his life, either as a healer or as a mage fighting at Hawke's side, but it had never stunk like this.

"Just a little further to the actual temple ruins," Hawke said. "It's actually better there, ironically. If you ignore the red lyrium sprouting all over and the giant gaping hole into the Fade. At least it doesn't smell like death."

Anders squeezed Hawke's hand back and tried his hardest to look calm and sane and not about to fall to his knees screaming and tearing his hair out. Where in the Void was Justice? The spirit needed to see this, what they'd done together, but like so often recently, it felt like there was only him inside his head.

Hawke was right though, away from this area things became more bearable. Anders dared a quick look around at their small army of Breach-closers. People looked pale; some were even crying, but none were looking at him. Something for which he felt profoundly grateful.

Soon enough all eyes would be directed Hawke's way, of course, but at that point they wouldn't be caring who stood next to the Herald.

When they got to the centre, everyone became all business, mages and templars both moving smoothly into their assigned positions. Hawke squeezed Anders' hand one more time and leant in for a stolen kiss. "For luck," he said before letting go and moving to almost directly under the Breach overhead.

Anders watched as Cassandra and Solas turned from Hawke to address the crowd. "Mages," Cassandra shouted, "templars!"

"Focus on the Herald, mages," Solas said. "Let his will draw from you. Templars, feel you way into the Breach to draw power from it."

Hawke looked down at his left hand, turning it this way and that, watching the green energy from the mark flow around it like he was conjuring fire. He raised his head, and glanced behind him, his gaze seeking out his friends, lingering lastly on Anders.

Then, taking a deep breath, he started forward, his steps getting progressively more difficult as the energy pouring from the Breach seemed to react to the energy coming from Hawke's hand.

Solas raised his arm and then dropped it, clearly a signal. The mages raised their staves; the templars thrust their swords into the ground at their feet, and Anders could see the energy passing to Hawke. Not just see, but hear and feel it too. He'd never felt anything like this in his life.

He raised his own staff, adding his own energy to the throng, and then, finally, yes, Justice was there, feeding the power coming from Anders, making it stronger.

Hawke's steps, which had been starting to falter, strengthened, and he kept moving forward, braced like a man walking into a windstorm. And then, when he'd finally made it to directly beneath the Breach, Hawke thrust his marked hand over his head, the energy pouring from it pushing back that of the Breach. Anders could feel Hawke pulling power from all those offering it, saw the moment when Hawke grit his teeth and stood just that tiny bit taller. The green light surrounding Hawke and the Breach grew impossibly brighter, the air seemed charged in a way Anders had never felt before, the pressure building and building...

Until it exploded in a brilliant blaze of light so bright that it blotted everything out for a moment, including Anders' view of Hawke.

Everyone staggered back, but as soon as he was able, Anders was up and running. Through his now spotted vision, he could see Hawke, on one knee, head bowed. Anders skidded to his knees beside him.

"Love?"

Hawke lifted his head just enough to look at Anders, appearing more exhausted than Anders could ever remember seeing him. "Did it work?" he asked, voice barely more than a breath.

"Uh, something happened, yes," Anders said distractedly as he tried to feed whatever was left of his power reserve into Hawke, much as he had with Fenris at Therinfal.

"You did it." Cassandra had come to stand beside them.

Behind them cheers broke out from mages and templars alike, and Hawke bent his head in relief for a few seconds before struggling back to his feet, leaning on Anders as unobtrusively as possible as he did so.

Anders finally took a moment to stare up at the sky. The Breach... was still there, but quiescent, just a swirl of discoloured cloud compared to the maelstrom it had been. Dormant. "You're amazing, love," he told Hawke, leaning close to be heard over the cheers.

Hawke gave him a smile that was the embodiment of uncomplicated joy, and then he was pulling Anders even closer, grabbing his face between his hands and kissing him exuberantly. Unbelievably, the cheers seemed to get louder.

"Ahem!" Varric's voice said loudly from nearby. "Time enough for that later, you two. I hear talk of a celebration."

Hawke pulled back from the kiss and turned to glare at the dwarf – an expression that was marred by the fact that he still didn't seem able to stop smiling. "You realise you're interrupting my celebrating to tell me there's going to be celebrating?"

"Aw, come on, Hawke. You need to play politics here while you're riding high. Mages and templars just learnt what they can achieve when they work together. You need to make sure that point sticks in their memory."

Anders wanted to ask why Hawke needed to be the one doing this, but the answer was obvious, and of course, the more the Herald made out with the world's most wanted apostate in public, the more the huge influence he'd just gained would wane.

"Time enough for us later tonight," he said as firmly as he could, pulling back from Hawke. "This is like the time you killed the Arishok, only more so. Varric's right. You should capitalise on it."

Hawke glanced back at the crowd, mages and templars happily talking and celebrating their success with each other, no trace of the suspicion and ill will that usually marked such interactions. "You're probably right," he said, with a long sigh, but it was far less defeated than Anders had heard from him in a very long time and the smile still hadn't left his face.

Solas approached. "How are you feeling, Herald?"

"Mostly relieved that it worked," Hawke told him, taking a step back from Anders, but reaching for his hand instead. "Also that it didn't kill me. I'm nowhere near as exhausted as the last time I tried this, even."

"Excellent news. This was a remarkable feat for all involved. There is to be a celebration tonight, so I understand. We should enjoy it while we can."

"Because that's not at all ominous," Anders said. "Feast now for tomorrow we die?"

"You jest, but Hawke has now taken thrice from this Corypheus. The mages who would be Venatori, the templars who would be red, and now the Breach and whatever that meant to our enemy. I can't imagine he intends to sit back and ignore these slights."

Hawke's slightly giddy smile finally faded at that. "You're right. There's going to be retaliation – when and what we don't know, but it's coming."

"Hopefully, there is time to prepare," Solas said.

"And time too to party," Varric said. "People _need_ that to underline what happened here." Solas nodded, obviously agreeing with Varric's point.

"At the very least," Anders said, "Hawke needs an evening of pampering and... whatever else he fancies."

"I've one or two ideas," Hawke said, his warm smile returning when he looked at Anders, though not the giddy levels of joy of earlier.

"I imagine I can leave any... pampering to you," Solas said, smiling at Anders. "For now, it's time to make our way back to Haven."

Hawke nodded. "Let people cheer me, say something inspirational, and then hopefully make my escape. It's like being made Champion all over again. At least I'm not bleeding as much this time."


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which party crashers spoil everything...

Fenris looked around. He didn't think he'd ever seen so many happy, relieved people in one place. After Hawke had defeated the Arishok, there had certainly been relief, but far too many had died or suffered great losses for there to be much in the way of joy. Here though, in Haven, the night was full of song and laughter. There were even a few people dancing around the nearby fire.

He found Dorian close to a group of ex-rebel mages, listening but not joining in with whatever energetic discussion it was that they were having. Fenris touched Dorian on the arm, and having got his attention, held up his prize. "Look what I found."

It was almost comical the way Dorian's eyes lit up. He leant in close enough to get a better look at the label on the bottle of wine. "Orlesian, I see," he commented. "Not as good as an Antivan or Tevinter vintage, but still a definite step up from what I thought was available here. Wherever did you find it?"

"It's probably best I don't say," Fenris said with a short laugh. "I don't want incriminate the guilty. Come on, let's find somewhere to sit."

"There was room on the benches near that fire over by the tavern," Dorian suggested, starting to head in that direction. "Even if they've filled up, I seem to have developed a marvellous new talent for clearing out space with just my presence."

The protective urge that produced was highly inappropriate, so he ignored it. "Impressive. I normally have to snarl to achieve that."

Fortunately the bench was empty when they reached it, although many people, including Varric, were nearby. Fenris nodded at the dwarf as he and Dorian sat down.

Dorian rummaged through one of the many pouches attached to his belt and came up with a small knife. "Hand it here, and we'll get it open," he said, holding out a hand for the bottle. "I assume it is too much to hope for goblets to put it in? No matter. It won't be the first time I've forgone them and drunk straight from a bottle."

Fenris handed over the bottle, saying, "Drinking from the bottle is how I usually do it."

"I would say I was shocked and appalled, but it would be a complete lie. Drinking excellent vintages straight from the bottle fits in far too well with your whole savage allure," Dorian teased. He made quick work opening the wine and handed it back to Fenris for the first gulp.

It wasn't bad. Fenris actually let himself taste the wine for a few moments, swilling it around his mouth, before swallowing and handing the bottle back. "Savage allure?"

Dorian took a large drink, eyes closed for a second as he seemed to relish it. "Maker, I'd almost forgotten what an actual quality drink tastes like," he murmured, handing the bottle back. "Yes, savage allure. You walk around with a palpable aura of anger and violence clinging to you – anyone with half a brain is going to realise you are dangerous and act accordingly, but you are surely aware you are not without your charms as well."

"I have a big... sword?" Fenris said, deliberately playing innocent and not very well as he couldn't completely repress his grin. He drank more wine to help with that and passed the bottle back.

"Hah!" Dorian grinned in approval, toasting Fenris with the bottle before taking a drink. "I'll add deadpan sense of humour to your list of charms, shall I?"

"You're keeping a list?"

How easily he and Dorian seemed to get along. It wasn't alarming, but perhaps it should have been. Fenris considered himself not completely without self-awareness. He knew he'd mellowed considerably on the topic of magic and mages. So many years of following Hawke around had to have some effect, after all. But Dorian wasn't just a mage; he was the scion of a top Tevinter house, and for some reason, that no longer seemed to bother Fenris at all.

"Not that I've actually written down or anything..." Dorian said, "but yes, I suppose I am."

"I'm flattered," Fenris said with a smirk that softened into a genuine smile. "I find I cannot imagine how you fitted in with Tevinter high society. You seem far too..." He paused, wanting to make sure he got the right words. "Generous of spirit," he decided upon. "And sane."

There was a brief moment where Fenris registered what seemed like genuine shock on Dorian's face at the compliment, then Dorian looked down, an almost shy smile of pleasure touching his lips. "Thank you," he said, voice softer than Fenris was used to hearing from him. Then Dorian took a deep breath, and his usual manner fell back into place. "The answer to how I fitted into high society and the role to which I was bred is, of course, poorly. Much to my father's anger and disappointment."

"He sounds far more like the Tevinter I remember," Fenris said wryly. "Are you an only child?"

Dorian nodded. "I am the sole repository for all of my parents' aspirations for the future of House Pavus. Considering how much they loathe each other it probably seemed like far too much trouble to create a second child. Although I'm sure they regret putting all their eggs in one basket now."

"More house scions should be like you. The whole rotten system could be overthrown in one generation." Fenris, who currently had the rapidly emptying bottle, raised in a toast to this impossible future.

He got a repeat of that shy genuine smile from Dorian at that, just briefly."Would that we could fix what ails Tevinter," Dorian said, smile fading into a rather melancholy expression as he reached for the bottle. "I don't know if it's possible any longer without burning the whole thing to the ground, good and bad."

Fenris should probably shut up about Tevinter; he didn't want to make Dorian sad. He just wasn't sure how to find out more about Dorian, which he found he wanted to do, without talking about the place. "Hawke told me the mage who sent you into the future was once your mentor. Was he a friend of the family?"

"Of a sort," Dorian replied, the melancholy seeming to grow stronger at the change in subject. "Alexius and my father weren't really close socially, but they shared similar ideologies so were allies more often than not in the Magisterium."

Fenris frowned. He was obviously making things worse. "Do you have friends there?" he asked, and then cursed himself silently because either Dorian had had friends and would therefore be missing them, or he didn't have and Fenris would just have reminded him of his loneliness.

Surprisingly though, the question brought back a smile to Dorian's face. "A few, though most would fall more into the realm of acquaintance than true friend. But I do have one real friend from those days – Felix, Alexius' son. I met him when Alexius took me on. He's possessed of the most generous spirit of anyone I've ever met, truly one of the best of us."

"He's the one who was sent to Hawke's brother?" Fenris nodded. "Were you two... together?"

"Hawke asked us that too," Dorian said, his smile turning wry. "No, he's just my friend. Even if he were interested, I could have never disrespected Alexius by seducing his son. That... would have been poor repayment for taking a chance with me."

"You... liked Alexius?"

"Once he was a man by which I measured all others." Dorian was still smiling, but it was tinged bittersweet. "I... did not actually apply in the usual way for him to become my mentor. To say he found me in a compromising position would be to greatly understate the situation, but apparently even in my drunken wasted state I amused him with my wit, and then the next morning, when I had sobered up, I managed to impress him with my brilliance, enough that he wrote to my father and offered to take me on. Working with Alexius challenged me in a way I hadn't been before, but more than that, he... was kind. He treated me like I was more than just my deviant desires or failings of character. Working with him, living in his house, that was the first time in longer than I care to think that I had been... happy."

And yet this 'kind', accepting and apparently generous man had still fallen to dangerous magics and had joined corrupt cults as soon as life had tested him. Fenris held him up against the mage to which he compared all mages – Hawke – and found him wanting. Hawke too had lost so much, practically his entire family, and yet had never fallen.

For the first time, Fenris asked himself: would he forget his sense of right and wrong were he to lose those he cared about? He didn't like the answer that came immediately to mind.

"In that future you visited," he started slowly, "you met me?" He'd avoided asking Hawke much about this because of the haunted look that appeared in Hawke's eyes whenever the subject came up.

Dorian grimaced and took a long drink from the bottle before answering. "I did. Horrible place. I'm glad we stopped it from happening."

Fenris took the bottle from him before it was emptied. "What was I like?"

"Angry. Very violently angry, justifiably so. If that had been my present instead of a possible future, I would've been raining down fire on every spiteful, short-sighted fool who had brought the world to that."

Well, anger and violence were hardly a surprise; he knew himself that well, at least. "Hawke seems upset whenever the subject is broached. There must be more to it that that." Fenris paused and then added, "He said we were infected."

"Near as I can tell, _everyone_ was infected by then. at least everyone we met." Dorian looked at Fenris speculatively. "It was different in you though. Not like the others, or what we saw at Therinfal with those templars. You didn't have crystals or anything growing from you. Your... brands..." Dorian reached out a hand, but stopped before he touched the lyrium markings visible on Fenris' arm. "They had changed. They were all red."

Fenris looked down at his arm, trying to imagine it. "The lyrium had corrupted," he said flatly. "Was I– Had I become...?" He made a small growl of frustration at his inability to find the right words. Ultimately, he gave up and just said it as bluntly as he was thinking it. "Was I evil?"

Dorian's eyes widened in shock at the question. "Certainly not!" he answered with gratifying speed. "Violent and angry, like I said, yes, and understandably lacking your charm or sense of humour, but you were as far from evil as still existed in that place."

The sense of relief Fenris felt took him by surprise, it was so intense. He closed his eyes briefly. "Thank you," he said. "For telling me." Then he opened his eyes and laughed, turning to Dorian. " _That_ was your introduction to me? It's astounding we've got this far."

Dorian chuckled as well. "We may not have if I hadn't been far too distracted and busy in that future to keep putting my foot in it, like I did with you here those first few days. I am only that much of an ass when I have the time to be, thankfully."

"Don't sell yourself short. Few Tevinter have your capacity to question and grow." Previously, he would have said none, not of the ruling class. Fenris finished off the dregs of the bottle and looked down at it glumly.

"All gone?" Dorian asked, sounding disappointed.

"It's Ferelden ale or nothing now," Fenris said, letting the bottle drop. " _Kaffas_."

"Well, at least the company's of high calibre even if the drink on offer is not," Dorian said. "It should make even Ferelden ale a bit more palatable."

Fenris flashed him a smile. He was certain that no one before had ever considered his company 'high calibre'; not even Hawke would have said that without a bunch of provisos. Whatever this thing was between him and Dorian, it seemed to be both mutual and equal, something for which he could only be grateful.  Despite the differences, it still reminded Fenris of the earlier days with Hawke, before he went and messed it all up. Not that Hawke had changed afterwards, but everything had still been different, nonetheless.

"I'll liberate us a pair of tankards if you like," he offered, standing up.

"I would like very much," Dorian replied. "I will hold our seats against all comers while you do that then."

Fenris nodded and headed off into the tavern, stepping around revellers to get there. It seemed most of the people here were pretty inebriated by now. He hoped the tavern hadn't run out of drink... but all was well. The innkeep seemed to have located several large barrels from somewhere, and people were being allowed to help themselves – courtesy of the Inquisition, presumably. 

Mugs, however, were in shorter supply. In the end, he managed to cajole Flessa behind the bar to let him have a single huge tankard; it had to hold three pints or more. They kept it for Qunari visitors apparently, not that Fenris could imagine they got many of those. He and Dorian would have to share, but they'd just been sharing a bottle so that hardly seemed an imposition.

He filled it up and carried it very carefully back outside.

The expression on Dorian's face when he saw the size of the tankard was enough to make Fenris smirk. "I assume we're meant to share. Otherwise you're being both remarkably optimistic and remarkably selfish all at the same time," Dorian said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"There was only this one mug," Fenris said, "but it holds more than two normal sized. Also, ale is unlimited and on the house it seems." He passed the heavy vessel over to Dorian before sitting down beside him.

"I'm not sure if they intend for us to drink it or bathe in it," Dorian said wryly, looking down at the tankard for a moment before shrugging and taking a drink.

Fenris chuckled. If Dorian looked as if he were drinking from a saucepan, Maker knew how he'd appear when he drank from it. "How is it?" he asked.

Dorian grimaced. "Absolutely horrid," he declared, passing the tankard back. He sighed dramatically. "Ah, the sacrifices one is forced to make while saving the world."

"If we didn't need two hands to hold this monster, I'd suggest holding our noses as we drink." Fenris lifted the mug and gulped down quite a few mouthfuls of the stuff to make the effort worth it.

When he looked up from finishing, he saw Dorian looking at him speculatively. The mage then sighed and shook his head. "I was going to suggest we could always try holding each other's nose if it would help but I'm afraid I can't work out the logistics of such an act that doesn't end with us covered in Ferelden Ale and possibly suffocated."

Fenris laughed loudly at the image that presented, calming himself quickly, however, because it was making little waves form in the tankard. He passed it back to Dorian, noticing as he did so that the beer had given Dorian's lips a sensual shine that glittered gold in the flickering firelight.

"As attractive as your growl is, you really do have the most beautiful laugh," Dorian told him, smiling at him. "You should endeavour to use it more often."

He smiled uncertainly at Dorian. "No one's ever told me _that_ before."

"Well, obviously that's because you don't laugh enough," Dorian said, gesturing with the mug as if to say, point made.

Fenris watched the ale splash out of the mug and took it before any more could be lost, drinking deeply before replying. "You will have to be more amusing." He wiped his mouth and studied Dorian. "Are you sure you don't like the growl more? _That_ people have commented on before. Apparently they can feel it 'deep down inside'."

What Isabela had said was actually more colourful than that, but too gender specific to use with Dorian.

"Before they feel something else deep down inside?" Dorian teased, though Fenris thought there might have been a second's hesitation before he replied. His expression turned into that small genuine smile that Fenris was already learning to want to see more of. "No, I think I prefer your laugh. Laughter generally comes from a much nicer place than growling, and you deserve nice things."

What Dorian had said was very... kind, but Fenris found his mind fixating on the words 'deep down inside' in connection with Dorian. Before he could stop himself he heard himself asking in a deep, and yes, growly voice, "Nice things like you?"

He blocked his face with the tankard he was drinking from until he felt he could face Dorian again, as if what he had said had been merely in reference to their friendship. Then he passed the tankard over.

"Well," Dorian said, tilting his head to give Fenris a coy look as their fingers brushed on the tankard handover, "I can be _very_ nice."

 _Fasta vass_ , he should probably stop drinking now. If the heat pooling in his groin from the look Dorian had just given him was anything to go by, he should definitely stop drinking. He needed to go somewhere quiet and remind himself of all the very good reasons why slamming Dorian back into some wall somewhere and claiming his mouth, claiming all of him, would be a terrible idea.

He stared fixedly at the fire, saying, "I can imagine," in a rasping voice.

"So can I. I have a very good imagination." There was movement at Fenris' side, and even deliberately not looking at him he could tell Dorian was standing. "Also a bladder not large enough to contend with all of this awful ale. I should find a privy or at least somewhere less crowded to do something about that."

"Uh, yes, me too," Fenris said, standing. He noticed Dorian had put the tankard down on their bench, so he picked up and quickly gulped down what remained before turning to follow Dorian, who seemed to be weaving about a little, although that could be just his vision.

He met Fenris' gaze steadily enough though. "Shall we then?" he asked, and Fenris could see the question and invitation both in his eyes.

He nodded, and then said, "yes," rather redundantly too. They wandered off in the direction of some nearby huts. "Behind them should do," he said, heading for the furthest one. "I doubt anyone's indoors to complain."

Dorian followed without saying anything. Once they were deep in the shadows cast by the hut, he stepped closer to Fenris, until they would be touching if either of them took a deep breath. "Just to be certain," he said, voice low and warm and entirely too distracting, "we are propositioning each other here, yes? I haven't got the wrong end of the stick again?"

Fenris didn't answer, not with words. Words would be all wrong here. Words might stop this happening. He grabbed the back of Dorian's neck and pulled him down, pressing their lips together.

***

Varric leant back against the short pillar at the top of the steps and smiled. This was a good night following on from a good day. They didn't come that often so he was glad everyone seemed to be making the most of it. Well, mostly everyone. He could see Cassandra looking down at most of the merriment from near to Leliana's tent. She didn't even have a drink.

He pushed himself up, having decided to rectify that, but paused when he saw that spirit boy in front of him. The fact that he _could_ see Cole presumably meant Cole wanted to be seen, so he smiled at the lad.

Cole smiled back. "Seeing beyond the masks they gave each other, they think it's a bad idea, but try anyway. Bad ideas can break chains and break through walls," he said earnestly. As greetings go it was a lot more cryptic than Varric was used to.

Was he talking about Anders? "There are less devastating ways to break chains."

Cole shook his head. "Not _those_ chains," he said as if it was obvious. "The last time he tried, he ruined it all, even if only in his head. That's why he thinks trying again is a bad idea, but he's better now. And the drink makes him brave."

And that last line finally gave Varric a clue. "You're talking about Fenris. Fenris and Sparkler." He'd seen them earlier, sharing that bottle of wine he'd given Fenris earlier after a spot of bargaining with Josephine. And then the pair had shared a sodding great flagon of ale. Even speaking as a lover of ale himself, Varric was a little alarmed by how much the two of them seemed to put away.

"Yes," Cole confirmed, sounding pleased to be understood.

"Uh, is it mutual?" Varric asked, knowing he was probably taking advantage by asking, but if Fenris was about to implode again it was best to know.

Cole's voice took on that cadence like he was repeating something he heard. "He's suffered so much but survived, brave and breathtaking, he deserves nice things, far nicer than me. Maybe I should still refuse? But I'm too weak, if he wants me, even if it's only the wine, I want him. Won't hurt him, not like the others, would rather hurt myself. Whatever he wants, that's what I will do. Maker, don't let me hurt him."

Varric nodded, feeling guilty as he had no right to know Dorian's inner thoughts, but nonetheless relieved. "Maybe they _will_ be good for each other," he said with a smile. "So, what's it like knowing what's going on inside everyone, kid? Most of us have to guess from expressions, postures, words accidentally misspoken. That kind of thing."

"It's loud sometimes," Cole said, with a grimace, "but if I couldn't hear the hurt I wouldn't know how to help."

"And that's what you need to do?" A spirit of compassion, Anders had said. It seemed to Varric that they were probably quite fortunate to have him around.

"Yes. Helping is what I am. If I forget, fall to falling, then I am a demon." Varric could barely see Cole's eyes under the brim of his hat, but he could see enough to spot the fear in them. "I don't want to be a demon."

"That's good. That's important," he said, wondering what compassion spirits became if corrupted. Despair, maybe? "So how do you help people normally? I mean, not many people get trapped in their own heads by Envy demons."

"No," Cole agreed. "That was not the way it usually is. It all starts with listening. I hear the hurt and sometimes it's easy to help – a drink, food, a blanket, sleep. Small things that soothe. The intangible hurts... they are usually bigger. Harder to fix. Sometimes I get it wrong when I try and have to start over."

"You're different from most spirits," Varric said, although admittedly the only other spirit he'd ever spoken to was Justice, and he... probably didn't count.

"Yes. I am me."

Varric smiled at that. "You have a body that you haven't stolen is what I meant."

"I am me," Cole repeated again. "Just me. Not anyone else. I wouldn't want to be. I think if I was it would be too loud to hear."

"So you wouldn't like to be like Anders and Justice?" Varric checked.

"That went wrong, but it wasn't their fault. It was the place. Anders was like me, only wanting to help, to heal. He wanted to help so he said yes, but the hurt was so loud it drowned out everything else. It wasn't just him though, not just his hurt, though that was bad enough, but hurt from outside too. He couldn't hear it, not like I can, but because of Justice he could sense it. Bones breaking, bodies and blood seeped into stone until it screams silently. Hundreds and hundreds of years of it. The veil so thin that there's no effort to reaching across, but so much suffering that any spirit who does is driven mad." Cole shivered. "Like Adamant, only worse."

"Maker's breath." That certainly put a new spin on the Anders situation. And on his beleaguered home city. "Kirkwall's really that bad?"

Cole turned sad eyes on him. "I'm sorry. You love it very much. _Home_. You tried to help." He cocked his head to the side as if listening. "You did make it better. The hurt is just so big... But it would've been worse without you."

Varric wiped his hand over his mouth, feeling... well, troubled was the least of it. "I was the idiot that introduced red lyrium to the mix in Kirkwall. And now it's everywhere!"

"It's not your fault," Cole said, laying a gentle hand on Varric's shoulder. "You didn't make it sing. And you weren't whispering words and madness into people's dreams. You stood like stone, a spot of sanity in a sea of madness, a saving grace, someone he could lean on when he couldn't trust anything else. You made it _better_ not worse."

'He'... was Hawke? "Thanks, kid," Varric said. "That helps." And it did, a little. Enough to quell the uneasy feeling for now. "So that's what you do?"

"Yes." He sounded distracted though, frowning as he turned his head towards the village gates.

He turned to look the same way but could see nothing important. "What's up?"

"I thought it was echoes. Memories mirrored, reflections rebound and repeated as they sang," Cole said softly. "But it's not."

"What is it then?" Varric asked, having not a single clue what the kid was talking about.

"The Elder One," Cole said in the coldest tone Varric had heard from him. "He's here." He reached for his daggers and vanished from sight just as the alarm bells began to ring.

***

By the time Hawke had managed to do all the non-world saving parts of his Herald duties and get away, the sky had darkened and the celebration in Haven was in full swing. He smiled and returned greetings and handshakes and embraces as he moved through the streets, but never slowed down. He didn't begrudge anyone else how they celebrated their success, but he very much had his own plans, which, if all was right in the world for once, would be waiting for him in his cabin.

It was in fact. As Hawke entered the main area of his cabin it was to see Anders in just tunic and trousers, lounging on the bed. Candles had been placed and lit around the room, and it was probably them that had added the delicious scent to the air. Massage oil was waiting on the side table together with a mysterious bottle of wine and two goblets.

"Hello, love," Anders said with a smile, sitting up. "Politicking all done?"

"For tonight at least, yes, thank the Maker," Hawke said, closing the door behind him and crossing the room to where Anders was sitting. "I told everyone to play nice with each other and that I was taking the rest of the night off."

Anders stood to meet him with a lingering kiss and then set to work unbuckling Hawke's armour. "Varric found some Orlesian wine from somewhere I strongly suspect of being the ambassador's office. He gave me some fancy sweetmeats for you too, in a ribbon-wrapped box and everything."

"Were the two of you conspiring to spoil me?" Hawke teased. It felt like a little bit of a flashback to his days living in Hightown, the parts that were nice but never anything he _needed_.

"Well, I promised you pampering, love," Anders said, putting Hawke's armoured robe to one side. "You deserve it."

"The only thing I really need right now is you." Hawke turned and pulled Anders against him with a grin. "And look, I've got you. I'm good."

"Whenever you want me, you've got me." Hawke felt Anders' body relax against him, wrapping one arm around Hawke's body and combing the hand of the other into Hawke's hair. "How are your energy levels now?"

It felt wonderful, and Hawke leaned his forehead on Anders' shoulder to make it easier for him to continue to do so. "I'm not about to fall asleep on you in the middle, so don't worry."

"In the middle of your luxurious massage?" Anders asked, humour in his tone.

"I was thinking something a bit more... active," Hawke said, turning his head nuzzle against Anders' jawline suggestively.

"Dancing perhaps?" Anders laughed and pulled back just enough to kiss Hawke's cheek. "Some rousing... exercise?"

"Dancing horizontally," Hawke said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Anders in a way he knew was over the top and outrageous. "Or up against the wall, I'm not as picky about the location as I am the partner."

Anders' lower hand slipped down to curve over Hawke's arse. "Well, the picked partner would prefer horizontal," he said, grinning and moving against Hawke in a way that felt damn good.

Hawke grinned. Now this was the kind of celebration he had been picturing all day. "Luckily, there's a bed right here." He hooked his fingers into the top of Anders' breeches and pulled him along with him as he walked backwards towards it. He sat on the edge, leaving his fingers where they were and smirked up at Anders. "Should I lead?"

"Lead and I will follow," Anders said, curling his hands around to lightly hold Hawke's head and rubbing his thumbs against Hawke's temples.

For a long moment, Hawke stayed like that, staring up at his lover with absolute contentment. This wasn't the sort of day that one forgot, but he knew with sudden clarity that in the future when he thought back to it, this was the moment he would remember first. "I love you," he said softly, never breaking eye contact.

"I love you too," Anders said and held the gaze for a little longer before adding, "always," and bending to kiss Hawke.

Hawke returned the kiss which quickly went from tender to dirty. When Anders finally pulled back, Hawke grinned up at him wickedly and began working on the fastenings of Anders' trousers.

They came undone easily and dropped to the floor around Anders' feet. He stepped out of them and leant gently on Hawke's shoulders with his hands, encouraging him backwards.

"I thought you were letting me lead," Hawke teased, though he moved as he was being encouraged to do, skirting back further onto the mattress and letting himself sprawl out under Anders.

"You are," Anders said with a chuckle. "Leading from underneath." He kissed Hawke deeply, moving to straddle him.

"Oh, is that what this is?" Hawke asked after their lips separated, smirking up at him, tangling his fingers in Anders' loose hair as it fell around their faces.

"Absolutely," Anders said, turning his face so he could kiss one of Hawke's hands, mouthing his way across the palm and licking up the index finger before taking it into his mouth.

Hawke caught his breath as a surge of anticipation went through him at the sight and feel of that. "People always talk about a healer's hands, but damn I love your mouth."

Anders eyes closed while he sucked and slowly slid his mouth up and down Hawke's finger, finally letting it go with a little pop and letting Hawke's now slick finger slide across his cheek. He pushed Hawke's tunic up as far as it would go. "Let's get this off."

"Leading from underneath seems an awful lot like letting you do whatever you want," Hawke observed, though he leant up enough that Anders could pull his shirt over his head and cast it aside. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

"You can stop me at any point," Anders said, his expression becoming more fixed as he stroked Hawke's chest with both hands. The movements made his buttocks tense and relax over Hawke's groin in a wonderful way. "You can–"

Hawke raised an eyebrow when Anders didn't continue. "I can... what?"

Anders seemed to shake himself and then quickly look around the room then back down at Hawke. He smiled. "You can stop me at any point."

"You said that already," Hawke reminded him, leaning up to steal another kiss. "Did you start in on the wine without me?"

Anders shook his head, his attention back fully on Hawke. "I promised you pampering. Roll over."

Giving in, Hawke turned over, enjoying the way he could feel Anders' thighs move against him as he did.

He felt Anders lean over to the side, presumably for the massage oil. "You're carrying so much weight on your shoulders, love. It's time to rest now."

"It's a whole lot lighter now that we've got that breach closed," Hawke said, pillowing his head on his crossed arms. "Stopping the world from ending is a big thing to get crossed off the list. Makes the rest of the stuff seem a little more achievable."

"Hmm," Anders said gently as he moved forward to lay his chest on top of Hawke's back. "You don't need to worry about that any more," he said as he slipped his arm between Hawke's neck and the bed. "Never again, in fact."

Before Hawke could ask what he meant by that, Anders moved suddenly, swiftly, and Hawke found himself fighting for breath as something was tightened hard around his neck.

Hawke was reacting before he formed the conscious thought to, reaching up grab the material strangling him and freezing it, making it brittle enough that it shattered as it was pulled tighter. He heaved his body upward, trying to get the suddenly suffocating weight off his back.

Anders made a low, bestial noise quite unlike anything Hawke had ever heard from him before. The weight was suddenly gone from Hawke, but almost as quickly a weight returned, as a crushing weight of stone grew like a fist around him.

He sent a pulse of force magic out, pushing everything away from him long enough for him to scrabble forward on hands and knees until he could roll off the bed, landing in a pile of limbs and blankets on the floor. What the blazes was happening?

"Enough!" Anders was standing near the door, pretty much crackling with power. His face was twisted with what looked like... revulsion? "Stop fighting this." He held up a hand and sent a wave of some kind of syrupy energy at Hawke.

Hawke got a barrier up just in time, but it wasn't something he could maintain indefinitely. He needed to counter attack, hard and fast, but even now he couldn't bring himself to hurt Anders. This had to be another nightmare. It had to be. He was going to wake up any second now...

Anders walked forwards, sneering down at Hawke as he raised his other hand. The blast of energy intensified, and Hawke knew his barrier was about to fall...

But then suddenly it stopped.

Anders was stationary in front of him, his bare skin cracked and glowing lyrium blue, his eyes swirling blue pools. " **I apologise. I was not expecting such a strong attack on Anders. It took me too long to break through it.** "

"Attack?" Hawke asked dumbly, even as he finally managed to untangle himself from the blankets and climb to his feet.

Justice, for it was definitely him, tipped his head to one side. " **Anders would never try to harm you if he had free will.** "

He knew that, he did, but hearing it confirmed by Justice sent equal parts relief and alarm through Hawke. "So.. it wasn't Anders attacking, it was someone else attacking _me_ , but using him?" He felt like he was running as fast as he could just to catch up to what was happening.

Justice nodded. " **The darkspawn magister. He must be very close to suddenly be so powerful.** "

 _Corypheus_. "Knew this was too easy," Hawke muttered, sighing heavily. He looked at Justice. "You're shielding Anders now? He can't get to him?"

" **Yes. I am without taint. He cannot influence me.** " Justice was frowning, however. " **Anders is... upset.** "

Hawke figured that was probably the mother of all understatements. "Can you still shield him now if he's... on top?" The Justice in the future had been able to do that at the end so he knew it was possible, but if Corypheus was actively trying to use Anders, now might not be the time to experiment if Justice wasn't sure.

No matter how much he needed to talk to his lover.

" **I... believe so. It will use more of our resources. I will need to remain closer to the surface than you are accustomed to.** " Justice paused and then added, " **Perhaps you could calm him. While he is like this, he is more open to malign influence.** "

"Please," he said, stepping closer. "Let me talk to him."

Justice looked impassively at Hawke for a moment longer, but then the light went from his eyes and his body went momentarily limp, falling against Hawke, before pulling back. "Love? Love, I'm so sorry. I'm... I'm..."

Hawke wrapped his arms around him and kissed him, putting all of his love and relief into it.

For a moment, Anders clung to him, but then he pulled right back, pushing away and starting to pace. "I couldn't stop him. I couldn't... If Justice hadn't... Oh Maker, Hawke, I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Hawke told him, feeling more and more like he had his equilibrium back with every second Anders was so demonstrably Anders. He stepped forward and caught Anders, stopping his pacing. "Anders..."

Anders stared at him, wide-eyed. "I could've killed you!"

"I'm still here," Hawke pointed out, wrapping his arms around Anders again. "And even if the worst had happened, I wouldn't have blamed you. It wasn't your fault. I'll keep saying it until you believe it.

"But it was my fault. I'm too weak, too open. I'm prey to every evil force around. If Justice wasn't here... if Justice..." Anders screwed up his face and then buried it in Hawke's shoulder, the muscles of his back shuddering.

Hawke held him, rubbing one hand up and down his back soothingly, and vowed to himself that he was going to make Corypheus pay for every second of Anders' suffering.

"Yes, yes, you're right, I know," Anders muttered and pulled back, obviously reluctantly. His eyes were red and his face miserable. "Justice wants to remind you that Corypheus is very close by."

As if to punctuate that point, the sound of alarm bells ringing drifted in from outside the cabin. Hawke could feel things falling to pieces around him, but he still took the time to kiss Anders again and managed to drag up what he hoped was a believable smile. "Then we better get dressed. I'm not taking down a darkspawn magister for the second time half naked."

***

Dorian would never admit it later on, but it wasn't the warning bells ringing that stopped him from moving against Fenris as they tried to devour each other's mouths in the best way possible. No, it wasn't until the happy noise of a crowd celebrating had turned into cries of alarm and panic that it dawned on him that something was happening that was more important than what was happening between him and the elf.

Fenris seemed equally confused, breathing heavily as they rushed round the hut to see what was going on. "What...?"

People, moments ago full of good cheer were now frightened and bewildered. Cassandra rushed past them, heading to the gate, her sword drawn.

" _Kaffas_ ," Fenris swore and darted away to the side, going against the flow of the crowd. "I need my weapon," he shouted, but whether to Dorian or the people getting in his way it wasn't clear.

That... was probably a good idea. He wasn't above using magic to make getting to his staff easier so instead of pushing through the crowd, he concentrated and fade stepped to the tent where he and Fenris had both left their weapons earlier. Slinging his staff onto his back, he picked up Fenris' sword and fade stepped again, this time close to where Fenris was still struggling against the flow of the crowd like a fish trying to swim upstream.

"How did you– Never mind," Fenris said, snatching it from Dorian. "We have to get to Hawke."

"The action seems to be at the gates so I suggest we start looking for him there," Dorian said, already moving in that direction.

Fortunately, it wasn't far, and even from the top of the steps they could see Cullen and Cassandra at the gate, Varric to one side, and Hawke and Anders just arriving. However, the bulk of the alarmed crowd was still moving in the opposite direction. Fenris hopped up onto the wall beside the stairs and then on to one of the dog statues. He then leapt down to the bottom, somehow managing not to collide with anyone.

Dorian managed to make his way down in a far more normal manner, reaching the group just in time to be startled out of a year's worth of life by Cole appearing in a puff of smoke that smelled of the Fade right beside him.

"He comes," Cole said, turning to look at Hawke. "You took his mages, took his templars. He is so very angry." He turned to stare at the gate and whatever was beyond it. "Whispering, wanting, wounding. I will win back what is mine."

"It's a massive force," Cullen was saying. "The bulk over the mountain."

"Under what banner?" asked Ambassador Montilyet who had arrived with Leliana.  
  
"None," Cullen replied.

"Corypheus," Hawke said. Or perhaps snarled was the far better description. The man was angrier than Dorian had ever seen him. He watched as Hawke strode to the gate and flung it open, stepping outside the walls protecting the village to glare up at the approaching force.

It was huge. From the gateway, Dorian could see red templars and what looked like Venatori as well as more standard soldiers.

Someone grabbed hold of his arm – it was Fenris, dragging him a few feet to Anders. "We need to be sober, mage," he growled.

"You and the rest of Haven," Anders muttered. He wasn't looking at all well, but nonetheless, he put a hand to each of their heads. Dorian felt the magic wash through him and his head cleared completely.

Cole had drifted to the open gate, his eyes searching. Finally he stiffened and raised a hand. "There," he said. "The Elder One."

Dorian moved until he could see what he was pointing at. It was a distant outcropping, and on it stood what was probably a woman, dressed in the robes of a Venatori mage, and male dressed in a suit of red armour, or perhaps covered in red lyrium. That was disturbing enough, but between them strode a figure that was the stuff of nightmares. It had to be ten feet tall at least, limbs long and thin, its fingers ending what, from this distance at least, looked like talons. Dorian used his magic to enhance his vision and immediately wished he hadn't.

Red lyrium was embedded in the creature's chest. Skin was stretched over it like a cloth that was only a few strands away from ripping clean in half. Its face... Its face looked human, but was stretched like the skin over its chest, giving the impression it was wearing it more than it actually being his face.

"Corypheus," Fenris growled. "We've killed him once; we can do it again."

"However many times it takes until it sticks," Varric said, lifting Bianca.

The assertions seemed to settle some of the wild rage Hawke was giving off. He took a deep breath and then turned and strode back to the others. "Cullen! I'm good with battles but not actual siege tactics. Give me a plan!"

"Haven is no fortress," Cullen said, looking gritty and determined. "If we are to withstand this monster, we must control the battle. Get to the trebuchet beyond the blacksmiths. Do whatever is necessary to gain control of it. It should already be aimed. Wind it up and let it go." He turned to the rest of the gathered people. "Soldiers! Gather the villagers! Fortify and watch for advanced forces!"

Hawke immediately turned and strode off towards the trebuchet, his staff in hand, his entire being practically crackling with magical energy. Anders, Fenris and Varric all fell in behind him without being asked, and Dorian found himself doing so as well, Cassandra and Solas jogging up to join him also.

The fighting started almost immediately as Venatori appeared from one side of the path, red templars from the other, but Hawke and his companions were practically a small army themselves, and their foes fell quickly... only to be replaced by more a little further along.

That set the pattern for the next little while – their group would be attacked, but quickly beat the enemy down only to have more appear. It was a pace that was eventually going to wear them down no matter how deadly a force they were – and make no mistake they were deadly, these were probably the best fighters Dorian had ever seen, much less fought alongside.

They needed to do something to dramatically cut the numbers their enemy could throw at them and the trebuchets were the key to that. They protected the first trebuchet long enough for it to get off a shot, then fought their way over to the other, cutting down the templars and Venetori that were swarming it and holding it long enough to get it aimed and fired.

The instant that second shot hit the mountain, Dorian knew they'd succeeded. The low rumble started more as something he could feel in his chest than hear, but quickly grew to deafening volume as half the mountainside's worth of snow came crashing down on the advancing army, carrying away as many as it buried.

They all paused, hesitant smiles starting to appear on their faces. The soldiers with them started to cheer... Then from nowhere something hit the trebuchet.

It exploded in a ball of flame and splintered chunks of wood, blasting even those who survived that to the ground... where they were in the perfect position to watch the huge black dragon fly over them.

From somewhere came Varric's voice. "You have got to be kidding me."

***

A dragon? The resurrected darkspawn magister with an army of Tevinter mages and corrupted templars also had a dragon on his side? What next? A battalion of giants? An ancient rock wraith or two?

Varric pulled himself to his feet, brushing himself free of debris.

"Anyone need healing?" Anders asked from close by.

Varric looked over at him and said, "Yeah, you do." The mage had a wooden shard all the way through one arm.

Hawke had been frowning up at the sky, but at those words he turned to Anders. "Maker," he muttered in an appalled tone as he quickly went to Anders' side.

Anders tried to brush him off. "It can wait, love. I need to make sure everyone still alive can walk before that beast comes back."

"It already is," Cassandra said harshly. "Everyone, run to the gate. Now!"

As a group, they all took off at a dead run. Varric felt the tell tale tingle of a barrier being cast over him more than once as they ran, but it didn't really do anything to stop the persistent itch between his shoulder blades because there was a bloody dragon circling around to attack them.

Cullen was at the gates waving everyone inside. They were amongst the last stragglers and he pushed the gates shut after them. For all the good that would do them.

"We need everyone back to the chantry," Cullen shouted. "It's the only building that might hold against... that beast." He turned to Hawke and said more quietly, "At this point, just make them work for it."

For a moment, looking at Hawke, Varric was thrown back in time. The only time he'd seen Hawke look that grim had been when everything had exploded back in Kirkwall. This was the expression Hawke wore when he was faced with doomsday.

But just like in Kirkwall, Hawke kept going. He turned to all of them, determination in his every move. "We're going to sweep every building on the way – make sure all the stragglers get to safety." Hawke grimaced briefly. "Such as it is. Once we get everyone to the chantry..." He trailed off for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't know, but we'll work on coming up with something then."

The enemy was already within the walls as they realised quickly once they got to the top of the steps. Standing back from the others to take aim, Varric heard something. The cabin to his right had been badly damaged, and the door was blocked, and someone was inside it, shouting and banging.

"Keep fighting," he called out to Hawke and the others. "There's someone trapped. I'm going to get them out."

As he eyed the cabin, trying to figure out the best way to approach, Cole appeared to his right. "There's a way in at the side," he said, for once speaking plainly.

Varric followed Cole's gaze and saw it, hurrying over and scrabbling up. "Thanks, kid."

It wasn't easy – the hole in the wall was up near the rafters and the only way up was a precariously stacked pile of firewood. No one who was any less light footed than Varric or Cole were could have made it up without bringing the whole thing down on their heads.

Jumping down inside, he found Haven's objectionable merchant cowering from the spreading fire. Oh well, just because he was an idiot didn't mean Varric was going to let him burn to death. "Let's see if we can get this door open between us," he said to Cole.

He actually got a grin out of the kid at that. A couple of well placed explosive bolts from Bianca weakened the debris enough that Cole was able to cut through what was left in a series of blurringly fast moves with those daggers of his. The door sprung open, and the merchant dashed out and off without even so much as a thank you.

From the merchant at least. "It was good to do that," Cole told Varric as they started making the way to catch up with the others.

"It was," Varric agreed. "Keep your ears open for more who need help."

The battle was still raging, bodies and injured everywhere, most of them obviously the enemy, thank the Maker. Varric made a mental checklist for all his friends. They were all still standing, but Anders was off to one side, half an eye on the battle, the rest of his attention on removing what was practically a stake from his arm.

It was a testament to just how chaotic things were that Hawke was too busy with the battle to be help with that, because Varric knew if he could be, Hawke would've had been right at Anders' side, focused on the injury.

Cole seemed to flicker from his place beside Varric, appearing next to Anders a second later. "I can pull it out if you heal it," he offered.

Anders looked at him and nodded, saying through obviously gritted teeth, "Let me freeze it first. Splinters... There, be quick!"

Cole grabbed the wood shard and yanked it out in one fast motion. He moved smoothly enough that it probably caused the least amount of pain it could, but judging from the cry that escaped Anders' lips that amount was still considerable.

Varric blasted a red templar that was taking too close an interest in Anders distraction, and having got the crystalline bastard's attention, blasted him again. By the time that fight was over, and Varric had a chance to check, Anders was back in the main fray, close to Hawke.

He nodded at Cole. "Good. Help me fight to the tavern? It's on fire. Might have folk inside."

"There are," Cole told him, then disappeared, only to reappear behind a red templar heading towards them and bury his daggers in its back. "She's trapped. We need to hurry!"

That was enough to make Varric go into overdrive, firing bolt after bolt, and together with Cole, clearing a path. As he drew close to the door, he could hear Flessa's cries. "Shit," he muttered, slamming Bianca's stock into the back of a Venatori mage.

"We're coming!" he yelled. "Hold on."

Two more Venatori zealots stepped in front of him, but Cole was suddenly there, a whirling blur of blades that left both zealots on the ground bleeding out and the way to the tavern clear.

They found Flessa pinned under a beam that had collapsed. "We'll get you free," Cole told her before looking at Varric.

Suddenly Varric was glad he had the muscles developed from wielding such a heavy crossbow. He put Bianca on his back, bent his legs and lifted. "Pull her out," he told Cole. "Carefully."

Cole grabbed Flessa by the shoulders and pulled her clear. "You can let go now," he said, the second Flessa's feet were out from under the beam.

He let the beam slam to the ground. They couldn't go back the way they'd come; the fire was spreading rapidly, but that was okay. The other door was right in front of them. "Can you walk?" he asked Flessa urgently, offering a hand.

She nodded shakily, clinging to Varric's hand for a moment after she regained her footing. "I thought I was dead. Thank you!"

Beside him, Varric saw Cole's head jerk up and a second later he heard more distant cries for help and loud barking. "They're trapped!" Cole said. "He can't get them out!" Then he was running through the door.

"Get to the chantry if you can," he told Flissa. "If not, stay with Hawke." And then he was running up the hill, following Cole, quickly seeing Hawke's mabari and Connor. They were trying to help two people trapped under a fallen barricade beside some barrels of Maker knows what.

"Shit." Judging by the tongue of flame following a black path towards them, it was oil and it was leaking.

Cole looked at the scene for a heartbeat and then flickered away, appearing a second later right beside Connor. He touched the mage's shoulder gently and pointed at the trail of flame. "You're right. The ice will stop it. Freeze it."

Connor acted immediately, the terrified expression on his face vanishing now he had something to do. The ice stopped the trail of fire dead, and Varric helped both the researcher and the apothecary out from the rubble that trapped them, receiving help with doing it as the others arrived.

Anders looked the two rescued over while Hawke checked on Connor. "That was quick thinking," he praised. "You saved their lives."

"No, it was that man who told me," Connor said, looking around in confusion. "He... had a hat?"

Varric smiled. "He means Cole," he said, gesturing towards the spirit that he could still see, even if Connor couldn't.

"It was your idea," Cole said, speaking directly to Connor. "I just saw it would work."

Connor seemed to jump a little, obviously now seeing Cole. "Where...?"

There wasn't time for an answer. Varric could hear yelling ahead of them, towards the chantry, and it looked like he wasn't the only one to hear them. Solas lifted his head and was straight into action.

"Someone needs help!" he said, pointing the direction with his staff before heading off in that direction.

Gwydion took off at full out sprint, barking all the way, a living breathing example of why mabari war hounds were things to be feared. The rest of them followed as fast as they could and found a pitched battle happening in the clearing in front of the chantry doors.

Giddy jumped at and knocked down a Venatori soldier, revealing a huddled figure on the ground that two Inquisition soldiers were trying to protect.

Leaving the melee types in their party to handle the scrum, Varric looked for and found enemy mages, bombarding them with bolts. So what if they could do that weird thing where they turned a swirl of what looked like black leaves and reappear over the other side of the area? All Varric had to do was turn slightly and keep on shooting.

When they had taken out all the enemies currently attacking them, there was enough of a lull that they were able to get the people being attacked into the chantry, including the man who had been on the ground who it turned out was Roderick.

Hawke hesitated at the door of the Chantry, looking out at the village. He turned his head to Cole. "Are there any more we can help?"

Cole listened for a second, then shook his head.

Anders crouched down in front of Roderick, who was awake but covered in blood. "Are you going to let me heal you?" he asked. "You're badly wounded."

Roderick actually hesitated before nodding, his face a grimace, but whether in pain or distaste of Anders was hard to tell.

Anders placed his hands above the fallen chancellor. They glowed blue as he worked his healing mojo, but the magic seemed to stutter and then stop too early. Anders put one of his hands on the ground and leant heavily on it. "Anyone got lyrium potions left?" he asked wearily.

"Get inside first," Cassandra ordered before Varric could say something similar but less blunt. "That dragon's still around somewhere."

"Yes," Roderick said, voice thick with pain. "The chantry is our shelter. I can wait." Cole appeared at his side and Roderick accepted his aid when he helped him up and carried most of his weight as they made their way towards the doors.

Hawke was only a step or two behind him, leaning down to help pull Anders back up.

"Justice needs so much of my power to stop him," Anders said to Hawke, leaning heavily on him for a moment, but then straightening and following the others inside.

Varric was the last to enter, turning around to stare out at Haven from the doorway. The place was a wreck, fires were everywhere, and there was the winged bastard that had done most of the damage coming in fast for another go.

Shivering, Varric stepped backwards and slammed the door shut.

***

Fenris stepped back to the side and silently counted people in. The last was Varric who closed the door behind him. Good, all Hawke's party and all the people they'd rescued had made it, although neither the chancellor nor Anders looked well.

He watched as Cullen rushed up from the back. "Hawke! Our position is not good," Cullen said urgently but redundantly as only a fool wouldn't realise that. "That dragon stole back any time you might have earned us. There has been no communication, no demands, only advance after advance."

Hawke looked grim. "He's not going to stop until everyone in the village is dead is he?"

"The Elder One doesn't care about the village," Cole said, drawing everyone's attention to him where he was kneeling beside the Chancellor. "He only cares about Hawke."

"Why is he so fixated on me?" Hawke asked plaintively. "Okay, yes, I did kill him once, but apparently that wasn't as big an inconvenience at it is for most people." He shook his head, running his hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "I know, it doesn't matter why, not right now. What matters is coming up with a way to stop him."

"It won't be easy. He has a dragon," Cole said solemnly.

"We know what he-" Cullen started, then cut himself off with an exasperated sigh, turning back to Hawke. "Champion, there's no tactics to make this survivable. The only thing that slowed them was the avalanche. We could turn the remaining trebuchets, cause one last slide."

Hawke shook his head, dismissing the idea. "We're overrun. To hit the enemy, we'd bury Haven."

"We're not coming out of this alive," Cullen insisted. "The only choice we have left is how spitefully we end this."

"Well that's not acceptable!" Dorian had been standing silently near Fenris, as they both listened to the conversation, but now he strode forward angrily. "We haven't fought so hard to get to this point only for you to drop rocks on our heads!"

Cullen turned to him, looking him straight in the eye. "Should we submit?" he said scathingly. "Let him kill us?"

Dorian didn't back down, "Dying is typically a last resort, not first." He jabbed a finger at Cullen's chest. "For a templar, you think like a blood mage."

Fenris let a snort of highly inappropriate laughter escape, seeing the look on Cullen's face. He hastily turned it into a cough and looked elsewhere.

In the brief silence that followed, Cole said softly, "Yes, that," as if continuing a conversation. Then louder so everyone could hear, "Chancellor Roderick can help. He wants to say it before he dies."

"He's not dying," Anders protested, moving away from Hawke to leant over the Chancellor. "If I could just get some lyrium potions?"

Cole nodded and disappeared, presumably to go looking for the requested potions.

"There is a path," Roderick said, even as Anders started fussing over him. "You wouldn't know it unless you'd made the summer pilgrimage as I have." He pushed Anders away and stood up, attention completely focused on Hawke. "The people can escape. She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could... tell you."

"What are you on about, Roderick?" Hawke asked, the way he instinctively reached out to help stabilise the wounded man taking much of the bite out of his words.

"It was whim that I walked the path. I did not mean to start – it was overgrown. Now, with so many in the Conclave dead, to be the only one who remembers..." He shook his head, marvelling. "I don't know, Herald. If this simple memory can save us, this could be more than accident. _You_ could be more."

"If this is true, we must start evacuating immediately," Cassandra said. "Cullen, you must see to it because I... _we_ must stay behind to operate the trebuchet." She turned to Hawke.

Hawke gave her a grim smile. "Always a pleasure to fight at your side, Seeker," he said grandly. He turned to the others, Fenris amongst them. "I can't ask any of you to come–"

"But you know we will, so don't waste your breath," Fenris said, lifting his sword.

"Just give me two minutes," Anders said, starting to rapidly swig potions from the small box Cole had found. "I need... to get... the chancellor... fit to travel."

"Anders," Hawke said, stepping forward and looking grim but determined. "You need to go with them."

Anders stopped drinking and stared at Hawke. "No, absolutely not."

"You and I both know it's going to take you more than few minutes to heal Roderick," Hawke said implacably. "He's the only one who knows how to get everyone out. You're going to need to keep him on his feet. You're the only one who can, Anders."

"No, don't do this to me, Hawke. You are not going out there to face a dragon and... and bloody Corypheus..." Anders' furious expression suddenly dropped like a weighted sheet. "And that's why, isn't it?" He turned away. "Okay, go out and die on your own then. Hurry up."

When Anders looked away, that's when Hawke's expression cracked and just for a second all the fear, pain and grief he was feeling shone through before he locked it all down again. "Anders, I... stay safe," he said quietly to Anders' back, then turned and started for the chantry doors, his staff held in a white knuckled grip.

Fenris looked between them and then found himself striding over to Anders. "I'll keep him safe if I can," he growled to the mage's back, and then he followed Hawke to the doors and out.

"We need to keep their attention on us for as long as possible," Hawke said, becoming all business as soon as the doors shut behind them. He called down lightning on the first band of red templars they came across, the spell bright and noisy.

Fenris shrugged, let his tattoos burn and shot to the nearest group of thugs, sweeping his sword in a wide circle. All around them, spells and bolts rained down, and throughout it they moved forward steadily, heading for the remaining armed trebuchet.

All of them were following Hawke's directive and being as loud and noticeable as possible, even Cole who normally couldn't even be spotted in the middle of a fight. But now when Fenris looked over, he saw the spirit boy appearing over and over in the direct path of foes, only to disappear at the last second when they lunged at him. "Can you see me?" he taunted in a voice that seemed to come from multiple locations at once. He seemed to dive right through a Venatori mage, then spun and buried a dagger in the mage's chest. "You will see me," he declared as he pulled his blade free and ran off after his next target.

With no Anders, all of them were depending on barrier spells and potions; something Fenris wasn't at all used to yet. With potions in limited supply, he needed to get used to it and fast. He was beginning to realise just how lucky they were to have a spirit healer with them normally, even it that did mean tolerating the abomination.

They battled their way onward until the trebuchet was in sight. It was, of course, surrounded by enemy forces. He could only hope none of them had the sense to release it now, before it could be turned, and so demolish their plan before they'd even reach it.

Hawke slung his staff onto his back and looked over the aiming mechanism, frowning as he glanced between it and the mountains above them. "This is going to take a while," he said as he grasped hold of the wheel that would turn the trebuchet towards its target. "They're going to regroup and come at us again. I'll get this thing pointed in the right direction if you can keep them off me."

Fenris strode over to Hawke and faced away from him, sword raised. "Do it."

He heard the grinding of the mechanism as Hawke started the slow process of aiming, but didn't even have time to think to look before he spotted a glittering of red in the distance – the first sign of more red templars advancing on their location.

The battle raged. Fenris and, it seemed, Solas concentrated on taking out foes that directly targeted Hawke, the others just fighting any who drew close. The enemy seemed infinite; corpses piled up around them. Meanwhile the sound of the trebuchet mechanism continued grinding behind them.

A loud roar sounded from the far side of the clearing, and Fenris whipped his head around to see... what looked like a walking cluster of red lyrium at least ten feet tall lumbering straight for Hawke and the trebuchet.

Almost without thinking, Fenris left the Venatori soldiers he had been fighting for Cassandra to finish off and shot across the ground, sword out, to scythe into the monster.

Shattered crystal shrapnel burst from where his blade hit, but he realised immediately that he hadn't done as much damage as he'd hoped.

The thing lifted one arm, shaped like a huge crystal club or maybe even a claw, and bought it down towards Fenris is a chopping motion. Fenris barely dodged out of the way in time.

It made another attempt to hit him, but as it raised its club-like appendage over its head, it was suddenly enveloped in ice, frozen to the spot. Fenris looked over to see Dorian with his staff aimed at the thing, obviously having just fired off an ice spell.

"Well, don't just stand there," Dorian called out. "Smash the loathsome thing!"

Fenris didn't need to be told once let alone twice. He raised his sword high above his head and brought it smashing down into the creature's head. Already half-crystalline and now the remaining flesh made ice, the blow caused a splintering explosion, knocking Fenris back and reducing the behemoth to nothing but dust and razor-sharp shards.

As Fenris propped himself back up to see this, he realised none of the debris had hit him. Someone had cast a barrier spell around him at the very last minute, no doubt saving his life.

"You're welcome," Hawke said, and Fenris turned to see him leaning against the trebuchet controls, his staff in hand, smirking at him. The trebuchet looked primed and ready to fire. "Couldn't let my favourite elf be turned into a pin cushion, could I?"

Fenris nodded his thanks and looked around the battle area. Cassandra and Varric were just finishing off the last visible enemy. Had they done it?

He happened to be looking back at Hawke again when the latter's eyes widened in alarm, a second before Fenris heard the sound of powerful wingbeats getting closer. "Move!" Hawke yelled, already pushing himself away from the trebuchet and turning to run. "Move!"

Fenris did as he was told.

***

Hawke had been scared a lot in his life, but seeing a dragon, that looked far too much like an archdemon for comfort, swooping down on him definitely ranked right up there. He yelled at the others to move and turned to run himself, but only got a few steps before the dragon swooped low and something blew up directly behind him, throwing him to the ground hard enough that everything greyed out.

That he didn't pass out entirely was more an effort of will than anything else, and by the time he managed to get his limbs to obey him enough to start to get up, it was to the sight of Corypheus himself walking out of the fire towards Hawke.

 _Time to go_ , Hawke thought and started backing up, only to have the ground shake as the dragon landed behind him. The beast stalked toward him, herding him back towards Corypheus with a truly blood curdling roar.

" **Enough!** " A blast of wind or some kind of energy hit Hawke from behind, and he turned back to see Corypheus all too close. **"You toy with forces beyond your ken, Hawke. No more."**

Hawke did what he always did when faced with something that would have most sane men gibbering with terror – he hid his fear behind a mask of jokes and snark. "Well, toying with forces actually within my ken gets a little boring after a while," he said.

" **You try to hide your dread behind humour, but you hide nothing. You tremble like every mortal when confronted by a god**." Corypheus stood amongst the flames, apparently untouched. " **Once I so trembled but no more. Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt your new god, the will that is Corypheus.** "

The overblown claims and language actually made it easier for Hawke to continue with the snark because that sort of thing should never be taken seriously even when said by a homicidal ancient darkspawn magister. "Sorry, but I'm not really in the market for a new god. Especially one that is so obviously barking mad."

" **You will deny. You will resist. It matters not**." Corypheus lifted his hand, and in it was a dull black orb. He looked at it and it ignited with red swirling energy. " **I am here for the anchor. The process of removing it begins now.** "

He shoved his other hand out towards Hawke. It burnt with the same magic, and Hawke felt it deeply in his own marked hand.

The sensation quickly went from what it felt like around rifts to how it had felt when he had first woke up with it, when it was actually slowly killing him... and then it got even worse. Whatever Corypheus was doing was tugging at it, pulling. The only way Hawke could describe it was it felt like he was trying to rip a limb from him.

He gritted his teeth against crying out from the pain, but still found himself on his knees cradling his marked hand as best he could through the attack.

" **This is your fault, Hawke. You interrupted a ritual years in the planning. and instead of dying, you stole its purpose. Any casual gratitude I felt for the opening of my prison died with your divine. I do not know how you survived; no doubt you consider yourself made remarkable by the anchor. But what you flail at rifts, I crafted to assault the very heavens**."

Through the pain, Hawke could sense something large looming over him. He turned his head slightly and saw the dragon's head almost close enough for him to reach out and touch. The sound it made, and the look it gave him, both seemed full of hungry anticipation, and Hawke would've shuddered if his body hadn't been locked in a rictus of agony from what Corypheus was doing.

" **You used the anchor to undo my work – the gall!"** Corypheus sounded closer now, his voice softer, **"By now you know that you can never defeat me, even with this swarming 'Inquisition' at your call. For you are but mortal, and I cannot die. You are an annoyance that I shall reform into an example.** "

"Better than you have tried, and I'm still here," Hawke managed to snarl through the pain.

Suddenly the pain eased dramatically, but before Hawke could even register his relief, he was being hoisted up into the air by his wrist. He found himself dangling in front of the giant form of Corypheus, the darkspawn reek almost unbearable this close.

" **I once breached the Fade in the name of another, to serve the Old Gods of the empire in person** ," the monster said. " **I found only chaos and corruption, dead whispers. For a thousand years, I was confused, but then your stumblings woke me to new understanding. I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world**."

Hawke was lifted closer, close enough to see into the twisted mouth that lectured him. Close enough to feel spittle on his face when Corypheus said, " **Beg that I succeed, Hawke. For I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty!** "

Before Hawke could even think of a response, he was hurtling through the air, Corypheus having tossed him as easily as he himself would've tossed a child's doll. He hit the side of the trebuchet hard enough to draw a pained exclamation from him as he fell to the ground. He didn't have breath remaining for more of a sound.

" **The anchor is permanent. You have spoilt it with your thieving** ," Corypheus said, slowly coming closer, his dragon moving behind him.

 _Good_ , Hawke thought spitefully. He spotted an abandoned sword laying nearby and lunged for it, scrambling to his feet and facing Corypheus and his dragon with a weapon in his hand, however futile it might be.

" **So be it. I will begin again, find another way to give this world the nation – and god – it requires,** " Corypheus said, the dragon now leaning its long neck over his shoulder to take a closer look at Hawke. " **I have time unlimited, whereas you have none. Your fate is too entangled with mine. I do not like it and will suffer it no longer. You must die.** "

Behind Corypheus, Hawke saw a distant flare shoot up into the sky and felt something relax in him at the sign that the others had successfully got away. No matter what happened now, he had got those people out. He'd got _Anders_ out.

Now he just had to get himself out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the Key lying abandoned in the snow and took a couple of side steps in its direction, bracing himself for what came next.

"You're right," he said. "Our fates do seem entangled. But if I'm dying, it won't be before you!" He kicked the release on the trebuchet, heard the chain in the mechanism whirl as it fired, and he _moved_. He dove for his staff and came up running at full speed as the ground began shaking. He didn't stop or look behind him, no matter how futile it was to try and outrun an avalanche. No one was ever going to be able to say that he didn't keep trying until his final breath.

Then just as the snows caught up and threatened to bury him, the ground he was moving over collapsed sending him falling into nothingness. His last sight before he hit was the snow pouring in above him, and then it all faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ends the first story of the _Inquisitor Hawke_ series. The second, as yet unnamed, tale is complete in rough form and will be subjected to comprehensive edits over the next couple of weeks before posting. Meanwhile, we're also busy writing the third.
> 
> Wolfling and I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has left feedback or kudos for our story. It means a lot - thank you so much!


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